Metrical quantization

Abstract

Canonical quantization may be approached from several different starting points. The usual approaches involve promotion of c-numbers to q-numbers, or path integral constructs, each of which generally succeeds only in Cartesian coordinates. All quantization schemes that lead to Hilbert space vectors and Weyl operators—even those that eschew Cartesian coordinates—implicitly contain a metric on a flat phase space. This feature is demonstrated by studying the classical and quantum “aggregations”, namely, the set of all facts and properties resident in all classical and quantum theories, respectively. Metrical quantization is an approach that elevates the flat phase space metric inherent in any canonical quantization to the level of a postulate. Far from being an unwanted structure, the flat phase space metric carries essential physical information. It is shown how the metric, when employed within a continuous-time regularization scheme, gives rise to an unambiguous quantization procedure that automatically leads to a canonical coherent state representation. Although attention in this paper is confined to canonical quantization we note that alternative, nonflat metrics may also be used, and they generally give rise to qualitatively different, noncanonical quantization schemes.