Quantum mechanics of the quaternionic Hilbert spaces based upon the imprimitivity theorem

Abstract

We survey the realization of quantum mechanics in quaternionic Hilbert spaces following the methods of Mackey, who examined the complex and real cases exploiting the imprimitivity theorem. We show that there exists a unique unitary skew-adjoint operator which commutes with all the observables. This operator not only plays the role of the imaginary unit in the complex case, but allows a complexification of the Hilbert space by the choice of any quaternionic imaginary unit. Difficulties in the definition of time reversal, however, arise because of the properties of the quaternionic field. The introduction of an extra imaginary unit, commuting with the others, is suggested in order to implement time reversal properly. In the Appendix we give the proof of the imprimitivity theorem, in the quaternionic case, that we use in the paper.