Wasserstein space as state space of quantum mechanics and optimal transport

Abstract

In this work, we are in the position to view a measurement of a physical observable as an experiment in the sense of probability theory. To every physical observable, a sample space called the spectrum of the observable is therefore available. We have investigated the Wasserstein spaces over the spectrums of a quantum observables, i.e. the space of all probability measures defined on the suitable σ-algebra of subsets of the spectrum equipped with certain metric. It has been shown here the existence of one-to-one correspondence between the set of all quantum states and the set of all distribution functions defined on the spectrum of an observable. Thanks to the correspondence, every quantum state can be represented by a probability measure associated with the corresponding distribution function. It has been shown that the Wasserstein space over the spectrum of an observable is homeomorphic to the Wasserstein space over the spectrum of another observable. Such homeomorphism is referred to as generalized Fourier transform. By using the work of von Renesse, it has been shown that the Newtonian dynamics of the system can be formulated in the Wasserstein space over the spectrum of each observable which is equivalent to the Schroedinger dynamics, starting from the solution of Newton equation of motion in the Wasserstein space over the spectrum of a certain observable.