arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Rocco Duvenhage.
We study characterizations of ergodicity, weak mixing and strong mixing of W*-dynamical systems in terms of joinings and subsystems of such systems. Ergodic joinings and Ornstein's criterion for strong mixing are also discussed in this context.
Relatively independent joinings of W*-dynamical systems are constructed. This is intimately related to subsystems of W*-dynamical systems, and therefore we also study general properties of subsystems, in particular fixed point subsystems and compact subsystems. This allows us to obtain characterizations of weak mixing and relative ergodicity, as well as of certain compact subsystems, in terms of joinings.
Joinings of C*-dynamical systems are defined in terms of free products of C*-algebras, as an analogue of joinings of classical dynamical systems. We then consider disjointness in this context, in particular for ergodic versus identity systems. Lastly we show how multi-time correlation functions appearing in quantum statistical mechanics naturally fit into this joining framework.
We study the notion of joinings of W*-dynamical systems, building on ideas from measure theoretic ergodic theory. In particular we prove sufficient and necessary conditions for ergodicity in terms of joinings, and also briefly look at conditional expectation operators associated with joinings.
We prove a weak form of the mean ergodic theorem for actions of amenable locally compact quantum groups in the von Neumann algebra setting.
Furstenberg's multiple recurrence result for measure theoretic dynamical systems is proved for compact C*-dynamical systems for which the evolution is given by a semigroup with the right cancellation property, a right invariant measure and containing a Folner net.
We study a nonconventional ergodic average for asymptotically abelian weakly mixing C*-dynamical systems, related to a second iteration of Khintchine's recurrence theorem obtained by Bergelson in the measure theoretic case. A noncommutative recurrence theorem for such systems is obtained as a corollary.
A framework analogous to path integrals in quantum physics is set up for abstract dynamical systems in a W*-algebraic setting. We consider spaces of evolutions, defined in a specific way, of a W*-algebra A as an analogue of spaces of classical paths, and show how integrals over such spaces, which we call ``evolution integrals'', lead to dynamics in a Hilbert space on a ``higher level'' which is viewed as an analogue of quantum dynamics obtained from path integrals. The measures with respect to which these integrals are performed are projection valued.
We study weak mixing of all orders for weakly mixing measure preserving dynamical systems, where the dynamics is given by the action of an abelian second countable topological group which has an invariant measure under the group operation. One of the main technical tools we use is a van der Corput lemma for Hilbert space valued functions on a second countable topological group.
We extend previous results on noncommutative recurrence in unital *-algebras over the integers, to the case where one works over locally compact Hausdorff groups. We derive a generalization of Khintchine's recurrence theorem, as well as a form of multiple recurrence. This is done using the mean ergodic theorem in Hilbert space, via the GNS construction.
Quantum mechanics is essentially a statistical theory. Classical mechanics, however, is usually not viewed as being inherently statistical. Nevertheless, the latter can also be formulated statistically. Furthermore, a statistical formulation of both can be expressed in terms of unital C*-algebras, in which case it becomes clear that they have the same general structure, with quantum mechanics a noncommutative generalization of the classical case. In purely mathematical terms it is seen that quantum mechanics is a noncommutative generalization of probability theory. The most important insight in this respect is that the projection postulate of quantum mechanics is a noncommutative conditional probability. This is the subject of Chapter 1 of the thesis. As ergodic theory (the long term behaviour of a dynamical system) is done in classical probability theory, it is then also done for noncommutative probability theory in Chapter 2. In particular, generalizations of Khintchine's recurrence theorem and a variation thereof for ergodic systems are proved, as well as various characterizations of noncommutative ergodicity. Lastly, in Chapter 3, recurrence and ergodicity is then investigated from a physical perspective in quantum and classical mechanics, by means of a quantum mechanical analogue of Liouville's Theorem in classical mechanics which was suggested in Chapter 1.
Results concerning recurrence and ergodicity are proved in an abstract Hilbert space setting based on the proof of Khintchine's recurrence theorem for sets, and on the Hilbert space characterization of ergodicity. These results are carried over to a non-commutative *-algebraic setting using the GNS-construction. This generalizes the corresponding measure theoretic results, in particular a variation of Khintchine's Theorem for ergodic systems, where the image of one set overlaps with another set, instead of with itself.
A suitable unified statistical formulation of quantum and classical mechanics in a *-algebraic setting leads us to conclude that information itself is noncommutative in quantum mechanics. Specifically we refer here to an observer's information regarding a physical system. This is seen as the main difference from classical mechanics, where an observer's information regarding a physical system obeys classical probability theory. Quantum mechanics is then viewed purely as a mathematical framework for the probabilistic description of noncommutative information, with the projection postulate being a noncommutative generalization of conditional probability. This view clarifies many problems surrounding the interpretation of quantum mechanics, particularly problems relating to the measuring process.
We first compare the mathematical structure of quantum and classical mechanics when both are formulated in a C*-algebraic framework. By using finite von Neumann algebras, a quantum mechanical analogue of Liouville's theorem is then proposed. We proceed to study Poincare recurrence in C*-algebras by mimicking the measure theoretic setting. The results are interpreted as recurrence in quantum mechanics, similar to Poincare recurrence in classical mechanics.