Least uncertainty principle in deformation quantization

Abstract

Deformation quantization generally produces families of cohomologically equivalent quantizations of a single physical system. We conjecture that the physically meaningful ones (i) allow enough observable energy distributions, i.e., ones for which no pure quantum state has negative probability, and (ii) reduce the uncertainty in the probability distribution of the resulting quantum states. For the simple harmonic oscillator this principle selects the classic Groenewold-Moyal (or Weyl) product on phase space while for the free particle, in which there is no real quantization, all cohomologically equivalent quantizations are equally good.