English

Wigner phase space distribution as a wave function

Quantum Physics 2013-11-20 v4 Mathematical Physics math.MP Atomic Physics

Abstract

We demonstrate that the Wigner function of a pure quantum state is a wave function in a specially tuned Dirac bra-ket formalism and argue that the Wigner function is in fact a probability amplitude for the quantum particle to be at a certain point of the classical phase space. Additionally, we establish that in the classical limit, the Wigner function transforms into a classical Koopman-von Neumann wave function rather than into a classical probability distribution. Since probability amplitude need not be positive, our findings provide an alternative outlook on the Wigner function's negativity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1202.3628,
  title  = {Wigner phase space distribution as a wave function},
  author = {Denys I. Bondar and Renan Cabrera and Dmitry V. Zhdanov and Herschel A. Rabitz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1202.3628},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

6 pages and 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:20:29.302Z