Quantum Riemannian geometry of phase space and nonassociativity

Abstract

Abstract Noncommutative or ‘quantum’ differential geometry has emerged in recent years as a process for quantizing not only a classical space into a noncommutative algebra (as familiar in quantum mechanics) but also differential forms, bundles and Riemannian structures at this level. The data for the algebra quantisation is a classical Poisson bracket while the data for quantum differential forms is a Poisson-compatible connection. We give an introduction to our recent result whereby further classical data such as classical bundles, metrics etc. all become quantised in a canonical ‘functorial’ way at least to 1st order in deformation theory. The theory imposes compatibility conditions between the classical Riemannian and Poisson structures as well as new physics such as typical nonassociativity of the differential structure at 2nd order. We develop in detail the case of ℂℙn where the commutation relations have the canonical form [wi, w̄j] = iλδij similar to the proposal of Penrose for quantum twistor space. Our work provides a canonical but ultimately nonassociative differential calculus on this algebra and quantises the metric and Levi-Civita connection at lowest order in λ.