Gauss Sums and Quantum Mechanics
Armitage, Vernon ; Rogers, Alice
arXiv, 0003107 / Harvested from arXiv
By adapting Feynman's sum over paths method to a quantum mechanical system whose phase space is a torus, a new proof of the Landsberg-Schaar identity for quadratic Gauss sums is given. In contrast to existing non-elementary proofs, which use infinite sums and a limiting process or contour integration, only finite sums are involved. The toroidal nature of the classical phase space leads to discrete position and momentum, and hence discrete time. The corresponding `path integrals' are finite sums whose normalisations are derived and which are shown to intertwine cyclicity and discreteness to give a finite version of Kelvin's method of images.
Publié le : 2000-03-22
Classification:  Quantum Physics,  Mathematical Physics,  Mathematics - Number Theory
@article{0003107,
     author = {Armitage, Vernon and Rogers, Alice},
     title = {Gauss Sums and Quantum Mechanics},
     journal = {arXiv},
     volume = {2000},
     number = {0},
     year = {2000},
     language = {en},
     url = {http://dml.mathdoc.fr/item/0003107}
}
Armitage, Vernon; Rogers, Alice. Gauss Sums and Quantum Mechanics. arXiv, Tome 2000 (2000) no. 0, . http://gdmltest.u-ga.fr/item/0003107/