Duality, Quantum Mechanics and (Almost) Complex Manifolds

Abstract

The classical mechanics of a finite number of degrees of freedom requires a symplectic structure on phase space [Formula: see text], but it is independent of any complex structure. On the contrary, the quantum theory is intimately linked with the choice of a complex structure on [Formula: see text]. When the latter is a complex-analytic manifold admitting just one complex structure, there is a unique quantization whose classical limit is [Formula: see text]. Then the notion of coherence is the same for all observers. However, when [Formula: see text] admits two or more nonbiholomorphic complex structures, there is one different quantization per different complex structure on [Formula: see text]. The lack of analyticity in transforming between nonbiholomorphic complex structures can be interpreted as the loss of quantum-mechanical coherence under the corresponding transformation. Observers using one complex structure perceive as coherent the states that other observers, using a different complex structure, do not perceive as such. This is the notion of a quantum-mechanical duality transformation: the relativity of the notion of a quantum.