central extensions and physics - umr cnrs 8524.pdf

CENTRAL EXTENSIONS AND PHYSICS G.M. Tuynman and W.A.J.J. Wiegerinck Abstract. In this paper two themes are considered; first of all we consider the question under what circumstances a central extension of the Lie algebra of a given Lie group determines a central extension of this Lie group (and how many different ones). The answer will be that if we give the algebra extension in the form of a left invariant closed 2-form ω on the Lie group, then there exists an associated group extension if and only if the group of periods of ω is a discrete subgroup of R and ω admits a momentum map for the left action of the group on itself. The second theme concerns the process of prequantization; we show that the con- struction needed to answer the previous question is exactly the same as the construc- tion of prequantum bundles in geometric quantization. Moreover we show that the formalism of prequantization over a symplectic manifold and the formalism of quan- tum mechanics (where the projective Hilbert spaces replaces the (symplectic) phase space) can be identified (modulo some “details” concerning infinite dimensions). §1. Introduction and notation Central extensions play an important role in quantum mechanics: one of the earlier encounters is by means of Wigner’s theorem which states that a symmetry of a quantum mechanical system determines a (anti-) unitary transformation of the Hilbert space, which is unique up to a phase factor eiϑ . As an immediate consequence of this phase factor, one deduces that given a quantum mechanical symmetry group G there exists an extension G of G by U (1) (the phase factors) which acts as a group of u