Quantum Trajectories: Dirac, Moyal and Bohm

We recall Dirac’s early proposals to develop a description of quan- tum phenomena in terms of a non-commutative algebra in which he suggested a way to construct what he called ‘quantum trajectories’. Generalising these ideas, we show how they are related to weak val- ues and explore their use in the experimental construction of quantum trajectories.

We discuss covering spaces which play an essential role in accounting for the ‘wave’ properties of quantum particles. We briefly point out how new mathematical techniques take us beyond Hilbert space and into a deeper structure which connects with the algebras originally introduced by Born, Heisenberg and Jordan. This enables us to bring out the geometric aspects of quantum phenomena.

The article was published in: arXiv, 23th October 2016

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This work was supported (in part) by the Fetzer Franklin Fund of the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust.