English

Action for classical, quantum, closed and open systems

Quantum Physics 2024-05-30 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

It is well known that the action functional can be used to define classical, quantum, closed, and open dynamics in a generalization of the variational principle and in the path integral formalism in classical and quantum dynamics, respectively. These schemes are based on an unusual feature, a formal redoubling of the degrees of freedom. Several arguments to motivate the redoubling are put forward in classical and quantum mechanics to demonstrate that such a formalism is natural.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2307.12320,
  title  = {Action for classical, quantum, closed and open systems},
  author = {Janos Polonyi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.12320},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

Final version to appear in Annals of Physics

R2 v1 2026-06-28T11:37:59.735Z