Invariance Groups in Classical and Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

AbstractThis is a report on some new relations and analogies between classical mechanics and quantum mechanics which arise out of the work of Kostant and Souriau. Topics treated are i) the role of symmetry groups; ii) the notion of elementary system and the role of Casimir invariants; iii) energy levels; iv) quantisation in terms of geometric data on the classical phase space. Some applications are described.