Cylindrical Wigner Measures

Abstract

In this paper we study the semiclassical behavior of quantum states acting on the ${\mathrm{C}}^{\ast }$-algebra of canonical commutation relations, from a general perspective. The aim is to provide a unified and flexible approach to the semiclassical analysis of bosonic systems. We also give a detailed overview of possible applications of this approach to mathematical problems of both axiomatic relativistic quantum field theories and nonrelativistic many body systems. If the theory has infinitely many degrees of freedom, the set of Wigner measures, i.e. the classical counterpart of the set of quantum states, coincides with the set of all cylindrical measures acting on the algebraic dual of the space of test functions for the field, and this reveals a very rich semiclassical structure compared to the finite-dimensional case. We characterize the cylindrical Wigner measures and the a priori properties they inherit from the corresponding quantum states.