All noncommutative spaces of κ-Poincaré geodesics

Abstract

Abstract Noncommutative spaces of geodesics provide an alternative way of introducing noncommutative relativistic kinematics endowed with quantum group symmetry. In this paper we present explicitly the seven noncommutative spaces of time-, space- and light-like geodesics that can be constructed from the time-, space- and light-versions of the κ-Poincaré quantum symmetry in (3 + 1) dimensions. Remarkably enough, only for the light-like (or null-plane) κ-Poincaré deformation the three types of noncommutative spaces of geodesics can be constructed, while for the time-like and space-like deformations both the quantum time-like and space-like geodesics can be defined, but not the light-like one. This obstruction comes from the constraint imposed by the coisotropy condition for the corresponding deformation with respect to the isotropy subalgebra associated to the given space of geodesics, since all these quantum spaces are constructed as quantizations of the corresponding classical coisotropic Poisson homogeneous spaces. The known quantum space of geodesics on the light cone is given by a five-dimensional homogeneous quadratic algebra, and the six nocommutative spaces of time-like and space-like geodesics are explicitly obtained as six-dimensional nonlinear algebras. Five out of these six spaces are here presented for the first time, and Darboux generators for all of them are found, thus showing that the quantum deformation parameter κ −1 plays exactly the same algebraic role on quantum geodesics as the Planck constant ℏ plays in the usual phase space description of quantum mechanics.