Obstructions to Quantization

Mark J. Gotay

Published 1998-09-10Version 1

Quantization is not a straightforward proposition, as shown by Groenewold's and Van Hove's discovery, more than fifty years ago, of an "obstruction" to quantization. Their "no-go theorems" assert that it is impossible to consistently quantize every classical polynomial observable on the phase space R^{2n} in a physically meaningful way. Similar obstructions have been found for S^2 and T*S^1, buttressing the common belief that no-go theorems should hold in some generality. Surprisingly, this is not so--it has been proven that there are no obstructions to quantizing either T^2 or T*R_+. In this paper we work towards delineating the circumstances under which such obstructions will appear, and understanding the mechanisms which produce them. Our objectives are to conjecture--and in some cases prove--generalized Groenewold-Van Hove theorems, and to determine the maximal Lie subalgebras of observables which can be consistently quantized. This requires a study of the structure of Poisson algebras and their representations. To these ends we include an exposition of both prequantization (in an extended sense) and quantization theory, here formulated in terms of "basic algebras of observables." We then review in detail the known results for R^{2n}, S^2, T*S^1, T^2, and T*R_+, as well as recent theoretical work.