Dirac and normal states on Weyl–von Neumann algebras

Abstract

AbstractWe study particular classes of states on the Weyl algebra $$\mathcal {W}$$ W associated with a symplectic vector space S and on the von Neumann algebras generated in representations of $$\mathcal {W}$$ W . Applications in quantum physics require an implementation of constraint equations, e.g., due to gauge conditions, and can be based on the so-called Dirac states. The states can be characterized by nonlinear functions on S, and it turns out that those corresponding to non-trivial Dirac states are typically discontinuous. We discuss general aspects of this interplay between functions on S and states, but also develop an analysis for a particular example class of non-trivial Dirac states. In the last part, we focus on the specific situation with $$S = L^2(\mathbb {R}^n)$$ S = L 2 ( R n ) or test functions on $$\mathbb {R}^n$$ R n and relate properties of states on $$\mathcal {W}$$ W with those of generalized functions on $$\mathbb {R}^n$$ R n or with harmonic analysis aspects of corresponding Borel measures on Schwartz functions and on temperate distributions.