Hamiltonian structures in the quantum theory of Hamilton-Dirac systems

Abstract

This paper discusses the Hamiltonian aspects of the quantum theory of constrained Hamiltonian systems; in particular, we extend results of [9, 6] to such systems. In this paper, we usually refer to these systems as Hamilton–Dirac systems, because it was Dirac who first defined them (under the name of generalized Hamiltonian systems). Such systems arise in the application of the Legendre transform to unconstrained Lagrangian systems with singular Lagrange function (for which the Legendre transform is noninvertible). It should be emphasized that constrained Hamiltonian systems bear no relation to Lagrangian systems with holonomic constraints; however, them can be regarded as objects dual to Lagrangian systems with nonholonomic constraints. Namely, the Legendre transform turns Lagrangian systems with nonholonomic constraints into unconstrained Hamiltonian systems with singular Hamilton function