Deformation quantization for contact interactions and dissipation

Abstract

This thesis studies deformation quantization and its application to contact interactions and systems with dissipation. We consider the subtleties related to quantization when contact interactions and boundaries are present. We exploit the idea that discontinuous potentials are idealizations that should be realized as limits of smooth potentials. The Wigner functions are found for the Morse potential and in the proper limit they reduce to the Wigner functions for the infinite wall, for the most general (Robin) boundary conditions. This is possible for a very limited subset of the values of the parameters -- so-called fine tuning is necessary. It explains why Dirichlet boundary conditions are used predominantly. Secondly, we consider deformation quantization in relation to dissipative phenomena. For the damped harmonic oscillator we study a method using a modified noncommutative star product. Within this framework we resolve the non-reality problem with the Wigner function and correct the classical limit.