Berezin-Toeplitz Quantization for Compact Kähler Manifolds. A Review of Results
Abstract
This article is a review on Berezin-Toeplitz operator and Berezin-Toeplitz deformation quantization for compact quantizable Kähler manifolds. The basic objects, concepts, and results are given. This concerns the correct semiclassical limit behaviour of the operator quantization, the unique Berezin-Toeplitz deformation quantization (star product), covariant and contravariant Berezin symbols, and Berezin transform. Other related objects and constructions are also discussed.
1. Introduction
For quantizable Kähler manifolds the Berezin-Toeplitz (BT) quantization scheme, both the operator quantization and the deformation quantization, supplies canonically defined quantizations. Some time ago, in joint work with Martin Bordemann and Eckhard Meinrenken, the author of this review showed that for compact Kähler manifolds it is a well-defined quantization scheme with correct semiclassical limit [1].
What makes the Berezin-Toeplitz quantization scheme so attractive is that it does not depend on further choices and that it does not only produce a formal deformation quantization, but one which is deeply related to some operator calculus.
From the point of view of classical mechanics, compact Kähler manifolds appear as phase space manifolds of restricted systems or of reduced systems. A typical example of its appearance is given by the spherical pendulum which after reduction has as phase-space the complex projective space.
Very recently, inspired by fruitful applications of the basic techniques of the Berezin-Toeplitz scheme beyond the quantization of classical systems, the interest in it revived considerably.
For example, these techniques show up in a noncommutative geometry. More precisely, they appear in the approach to noncommutative geometry using fuzzy manifolds. The quantum spaces of the BT quantization of level m, defined in Section 3 further down, are finite-dimensional, and the quantum operator of level m constitutes finite-dimensional noncommutative matrix algebras. This is the arena of noncommutative fuzzy manifolds and gauge theories over them. The classical limit, the commutative manifold, is obtained as limit m → ∞. The name fuzzy sphere was coined by Madore [2] for a certain quantized version of the Riemann sphere. It turned out to be a quite productive direction in the noncommutative geometry approach to quantum field theory. It is impossible to give a rather complete list of people working in this approach. The following is a rather erratic and random choice of [3–10].
Another appearance of Berezin-Toeplitz quantization techniques as basic ingredients is in the pioneering work of Jørgen Andersen on the mapping class group (MCG) of surfaces in the context of Topological Quantum Field Theory (TQFT). Beside other results, he was able to prove the asymptotic faithfulness of the mapping group action on the space of covariantly constant sections of the Verlinde bundle with respect to the Axelrod-Witten-de la Pietra and Witten connection [11, 12]; see also [13]. Furthermore, he showed that the MCG does not have Kazhdan′s property T. Roughly speaking, a group which has property T says that the identity representation is isolated in the space of all unitary representations of the group [14]. In these applications, the manifolds to be quantized are the moduli spaces of certain flat connections on Riemann surfaces or, equivalently, the moduli space of stable algebraic vector bundles over smooth projective curves. Here further exciting research is going on, in particular, in the realm of TQFT and the construction of modular functors [15–17].
In general, quite often moduli spaces come with a Kähler structure which is quantizable. Hence, it is not surprising that the Berezin-Toeplitz quantization scheme is of importance in moduli space problems. Noncommutative deformations and a quantization being a noncommutative deformation, yield also information about the commutative situation. These aspects clearly need further investigations.
There are a lot of other applications on which work has already been done, recently started, or can be expected. As the Berezin-Toeplitz scheme has become a basic tool, this seems the right time to collect the techniques and results in such a review. We deliberately concentrate on the case of compact Kähler manifolds. In particular, we stress the methods and results valid for all of them. Due to “space-time” limitations, we will not deal with the noncompact situation. In this situation, case by case studies of the examples or class of examples are needed. See Section 3.7 for references to some of them. Also we have to skip presenting recent attempts to deal with special singular situations, like orbifolds, but see at least [18–20].
Of course, there are other reviews presenting similar quantization schemes. A very incomplete list is the following [21–25].
This review is self-contained in the following sense. I try to explain all notions and concepts needed to understand the results and theorems only assuming some background in modern geometry and analysis. And as such it should be accessible for a newcomer to the field (both for mathematicians as for physicists) and help him to enter these interesting research directions. It is not self-contained in the strict sense as it does supply only those proofs or sketches of proofs which are either not available elsewhere or are essential for the understanding of the statements and concepts. The review does not require a background in quantum physics as only mathematical aspects of quantizations are touched on.
2. The Set-Up of Geometric Quantization
In the following, I will recall the principal set-up of geometric quantization which is usually done for symplectic manifolds in the case when the manifold is a Kähler manifold.
2.1. Kähler Manifolds
We will only consider phase-space manifolds which carry the structure of a Kähler manifold (M, ω). Recall that in this case M is a complex manifold and ω, the Kähler form, is a nondegenerate closed positive (1,1)-form.
If the complex dimension of M is n, then the Kähler form ω can be written with respect to local holomorphic coordinates {zi} i=1,…,n as
Later on we will assume that M is a compact Kähler manifold.
2.2. Poisson Algebra
Denote by C∞(M) the algebra of complex-valued (arbitrary often) differentiable functions with the point-wise multiplication as an associative product. A symplectic form on a differentiable manifold is a closed nondegenerate 2-form. In particular, we can consider our Kähler form ω as a symplectic form.
For symplectic manifolds, we can introduce on C∞(M) a Lie algebra structure, the Poisson bracket Poisson bracket {·, ·}, in the following way. First we a assign to every f ∈ C∞(M) its Hamiltonian vector field Xf, and then to every pair of functions f and g the Poisson bracket {·, ·} via
2.3. Quantum Line Bundles
A quantum line bundle for a given symplectic manifold (M, ω) is a triple (L, h, ∇), where L is a complex line bundle, h a Hermitian metric on L, and ∇ a connection compatible with the metric h such that the (pre)quantum condition
In the situation of Kähler manifolds, we require for a quantum line bundle to be holomorphic and that the connection is compatible both with the metric h and the complex structure of the bundle. In fact, by this requirement ∇ will be uniquely fixed. If we choose local holomorphic coordinates on the manifold and a local holomorphic frame of the bundle, the metric h will be represented by a function . In this case, the curvature in the bundle can be given by and the quantum condition reads as
2.4. Example: The Riemann Sphere
The Riemann sphere is the complex projective line ℙ1(ℂ) = ℂ ∪ {∞}≅S2. With respect to the quasiglobal coordinate z, the form can be given as
2.5. Example: The Complex Projective Space
Next we consider the n-dimensional complex projective space ℙn(ℂ). The example above can be extended to the projective space of any dimension. The Kähler form is given by the Fubini-Study form
2.6. Example: The Torus
The (complex-) one-dimensional torus can be given as M = ℂ/Γτ, where Γτ : = {n + mτ∣n, m ∈ ℤ} is a lattice with Im τ > 0. As Kähler form, we take
2.7. Example: The Unit Disc and Riemann Surfaces
The unit disc
2.8. Consequences of Quantizability
The above examples might create the wrong impression that every Kähler manifold is quantizable. This is not the case. For example, only those higher-dimensional tori complex tori are quantizable which are abelian varieties, that is, which admit enough theta functions. It is well known that for n ≥ 2 a generic torus will not be an abelian variety. Why this implies that they will not be quantizable, we will see in a moment.
In the language of differential geometry, a line bundle is called a positive line bundle if its curvature form (up to a factor of 1/i) is a positive form. As the Kähler form is positive, the quantum condition (2.4) yields that a quantum line bundle L is a positive line bundle.
2.9. Embedding into Projective Space
In the following, we assume that M is a quantizable compact Kähler manifold with quantum line bundle L. Kodaira′s embedding theorem says that L is ample, that is, that there exists a certain tensor power of L such that the global holomorphic sections of can be used to embed the phase space manifold M into the projective space of suitable dimension. The embedding is defined as follows. Let be the vector space of global holomorphic sections of the bundle . Fix a basis s0, s1, …, sN. We choose local holomorphic coordinates z for M and a local holomorphic frame e(z) for the bundle L. After these choices, the basis elements can be uniquely described by local holomorphic functions defined via . The embedding is given by the map
By this embedding, quantizable compact Kähler manifolds are complex submanifolds of projective spaces. By Chow′s theorem [26], they can be given as zero sets of homogenous polynomials, that is, they are smooth projective varieties. The converse is also true. Given a smooth subvariety M of ℙn(ℂ), it will become a Kähler manifold by restricting the Fubini-Study form. The restriction of the hyper plane section bundle will be an associated quantum line bundle.
At this place a warning is necessary. The embedding is only an embedding as complex manifolds are not an isometric embedding as Kähler manifolds. This means that in general ϕ−1(ωFS) ≠ ω. See Section 7.6 for results on an “asymptotic expansion” of the pullback.
A line bundle, whose global holomorphic sections will define an embedding into projective space, is called a very ample line bundle. In the following, we will assume that L is already very ample. If L is not very ample, we choose m0 ∈ ℕ such that the bundle is very ample and take this bundle as quantum line bundle with respect to the rescaled Kähler form m0 ω on M. The underlying complex manifold structure will not change.
3. Berezin-Toeplitz Operators
In this section, we will consider an operator quantization. This says that we will assign to each differentiable (differentiable will always mean differentiable to any order) function f on our Kähler manifold M (i.e., on our “phase space”) the Berezin-Toeplitz (BT) quantum operator Tf. More precisely, we will consider a whole family of operators . These operators are defined in a canonical way. As we know from the Groenewold-van Howe theorem, we cannot expect that the Poisson bracket on M can be represented by the Lie algebra of operators if we require certain desirable conditions see [27] for further details. The best we can expect is that we obtain it at least “asymptotically”. In fact, this is true.
In our context also the operator of geometric quantization exists. At the end of this section, we will discuss its relation to the BT quantum operator. It will turn out that if we take for the geometric quantization the Kähler polarization then they have the same asymptotic behaviour.
3.1. Tensor Powers of the Quantum Line Bundle
Let (M, ω) be a compact quantizable Kähler manifold and (L, h, ∇) a quantum line bundle. We assume that L is already very ample. We consider all its tensor powers
We introduce a scalar product on the space of sections. In this review, we adopt the convention that a hermitian metric (and a scalar product) is antilinear in the first argument and linear in the second argument. First we take the Liouville form Ω = (1/n!)ω⋀n as a volume form on M and then set for the scalar product and the norm
Definition 3.1. For f ∈ C∞(M), the Toeplitz operator (of level m ) is defined by
In words, one takes a holomorphic section s and multiplies it with the differentiable function f. The resulting section f · s will only be differentiable. To obtain a holomorphic section, one has to project it back on the subspace of holomorphic sections.
The linear map
Furthermore, on a fixed level m, it is a map from the infinite-dimensional commutative algebra of functions to a noncommutative finite-dimensional (matrix) algebra. The finite-dimensionality is due to the compactness of M. A lot of classical information will get lost. To recover this information, one has to consider not just a single level m but all levels together.
Definition 3.2. The Berezin-Toeplitz quantization is the map
We obtain a family of finite-dimensional (matrix) algebras and a family of maps. This infinite family should in some sense “approximate” the algebra C∞(M).
3.2. Approximation Results
Denote for f ∈ C∞(M) by |f|∞, the supnorm of f on M and by
Theorem 3.3 (Bordemann et al. [1]). (a) For every f ∈ C∞(M), there exists a C > 0 such that
(b) For every f, g ∈ C∞(M),
(c) For every f, g ∈ C∞(M),
These results are contained in Theorems 4.1, 4.2, and in Section 5 in [1]. We will indicate the proof for (b) and (c) in Section 5. It will make reference to the symbol calculus of generalised Toeplitz operators as developed by Boutet de Monvel and Guillemin [28]. The original proof of (a) was quite involved and required Hermite distributions and related objects. On the basis of the asymptotic expansion of the Berezin transform [29], a more direct proof can be given. I will discuss this in Section 7.3.
Only on the basis of this theorem, we are allowed to call our scheme a quantizing scheme. The properties in the theorem might be rephrased as the BT operator quantization has the correct semiclassical limit.
3.3. Further Properties
From Theorem 3.3 (c), we have the following proposition.
Proposition 3.4. Let f1, f2, …, fr ∈ C∞(M); then
Proposition 3.5.
Proof. Using the left side of the triangle inequality, from Theorem 3.3 (b), it follows that
Proposition 3.6. The Toeplitz map
For a proof, see [1, Proposition 4.2].
This proposition says that for a fixed m every operator A ∈ End(Γhol(M, L(m))) is the Toeplitz operator of a function fm. In the language of Berezin′s co- and contravariant symbols, fm will be the contravariant symbol of A. We will discuss this in Section 6.2.
Proposition 3.7. For all f ∈ C∞(M),
Proof. Take s, t ∈ Γhol(M, Lm); then
The opposite of the last statement of the above proposition is also true in the following sense.
Proposition 3.8. Let A ∈ End(Γhol(M, L(m))) be a self-adjoint operator; then there exists a real valued function f, such that .
Proof. By the surjectivity of the Toeplitz map with a complex-valued functionf = f0 + i f1 with real functions f0 and f1. As , it follows that and hence . From this we conclude that .
We like to stress the fact that the Toeplitz map is never injective on a fixed level m. Only if for m → 0, we can conclude that f = g.
Proposition 3.9. Let f ∈ C∞(M) and n = dim ℂM. Denote the trace on End(Γhol(M, Lm)) by Tr (m), then
3.4. Strict Quantization
The asymptotic results of Theorem 3.3 say that the BT operator quantization is a strict quantization in the sense of Rieffel [31] as formulated in the book by Landsman [32]. We take as base space X = {0} ∪ {1/m∣m ∈ ℕ}, with its induced topology coming from ℝ. Note that {0} is an accumulation point of the set {1/m∣m ∈ ℕ}. As C* algebras above the points {1/m}, we take the algebras End(Γhol(M, L(m))) and above {0} the algebra C∞(M). For f ∈ C∞(M), we assign 0 ↦ f and . Now the property (a) in Theorem 3.3 is called in [32] Rieffel′s condition, (b) Dirac′s condition, and (c) von Neumann′s condition. Completeness is true by Propositions 3.6 and 3.8.
This definition is closely related to the notion of continuous fields of C*-algebras; see [32].
3.5. Relation to Geometric Quantization
There exists another quantum operator in the geometric setting, the operator of geometric quantization introduced by Kostant and Souriau. In a first step, the prequantum operator associated to the bundle Lm for the function f ∈ C∞(M) is defined as
Proposition 3.10 (Tuynman Lemma). Let M be a compact quantizable Kähler manifold; then
For the proof, see [33, 34] for a coordinate independent proof.
In particular, the and the have the same asymptotic behaviour. We obtain for similar results as in Theorem 3.3. For details see [35]. It should be noted that for (3.21) the compactness of M is essential.
3.6. Lα Approximation
In [34] the notion of Lα, respectively, gl(N), respectively, su(N) quasilimit were introduced. It was conjectured in [34] that for every compact quantizable Kähler manifold, the Poisson algebra of functions is a gl(N) quasilimit. In fact, the conjecture follows from Theorem 3.3; see [1, 35] for details.
3.7. The Noncompact Situation
Berezin-Toeplitz operators can be introduced for noncompact Kähler manifolds. In this case the L2 spaces are the space of bounded sections and for the subspaces of holomorphic sections one can only consider the bounded holomorphic sections. Unfortunately, in this context the proofs of Theorem 3.3 do not work. One has to study examples or classes of examples case by case in order to see whether the corresponding properties are correct.
In the following, we give a very incomplete list of references. Berezin himself studied bounded complex-symmetric domains [36]. In this case the manifold is an open domain in ℂn. Instead of sections one studies functions which are integrable with respect to a suitable measure depending on ℏ. Then 1/ℏ corresponds to the tensor power of our bundle. Such Toeplitz operators were studied extensively by Upmeier in a series of works [37–40]. See also the book of Upmeier [41]. For ℂn see Berger and Coburn [42, 43]. Klimek and Lesniewski [44, 45] studied the Berezin-Toeplitz quantization on the unit disc. Using automorphic forms and the universal covering, they obtain results for Riemann surfaces of genus g ≥ 2. The names of Borthwick, Klimek, Lesniewski, Rinaldi, and Upmeier should be mentioned in the context of BT quantization for Cartan domains and super Hermitian spaces.
A quite different approach to Berezin-Toeplitz quantization is based on the asymptotic expansion of the Bergman kernel outside the diagonal. This was also used by the author together with Karabegov [29] for the compact Kähler case. See Section 7 for some details. Engliš [46] showed similar results for bounded pseudoconvex domains in ℂN. Ma and Marinescu [18, 19] developed a theory of Bergman kernels for the symplectic case, which yields also results on the Berezin-Toeplitz operators for certain noncompact Kähler manifolds and even orbifolds.
4. Berezin-Toeplitz Deformation Quantization
There is another approach to quantization. Instead of assigning noncommutative operators to commuting functions, one might think about “deforming” the pointwise commutative multiplication of functions into a noncommutative product. It is required to remain associative, the commutator of two elements should relate to the Poisson bracket of the elements, and it should reduce in the “classical limit” to the commutative situation.
It turns out that such a deformation which is valid for all differentiable functions cannot exist. A way out is to enlarge the algebra of functions by considering formal power series over them and to deform the product inside this bigger algebra. A first systematic treatment and applications in physics of this idea were given in 1978 by Bayen et al. [47, 48]. There the notion of deformation quantization and star products were introduced. Earlier versions of these concepts were around due to Berezin [49], Moyal [50], and Weyl [51]. For a presentation of the history, see [24].
We will show that for compact Kähler manifolds M, there is a natural star product.
4.1. Definition of Star Products
We start with a Poisson manifold (M, {·, ·}), that is, a differentiable manifold with a Poisson bracket for the function such that (C∞(M), ·, {·, ·}) is a Poisson algebra. Let 𝒜 = C∞(M)[[ν]] be the algebra of formal power series in the variable ν over the algebra C∞(M).
Definition 4.1. A product ⋆ on 𝒜 is called a (formal) star product for M (or for C∞(M)) if it is an associative ℂ[[ν]]-linear product which is ν-adically continuous such that
- (1)
𝒜/ν𝒜≅C∞(M), that is, f⋆gmod ν = f · g,
- (2)
(1/ν)(f⋆g − g⋆f)mod ν = −i{f, g},
Alternatively, we can write
There are certain additional conditions for a star product which are sometimes useful.
- (1)
We call it “null on constants” if 1⋆f = f⋆1 = f, which is equivalent to the fact that the constant function 1 will remain the unit in 𝒜. In terms of the coefficients, it can be formulated as Ck(f, 1) = Ck(1, f) = 0 for k ≥ 1. In this review, we always assume this to be the case for star products.
- (2)
We call it self-adjoint if , where we assume .
- (3)
We call it local if
(4.3)From the locality property, it follows that the Cj are bidifferential operators and that the global star product defines for every open subset U of M a star product for the Poisson algebra C∞(U). Such local star products are also called differential star products.
4.2. Existence of Star Products
In the usual setting of deformation theory, there always exists a trivial deformation. This is not the case here, as the trivial deformation of C∞(M) to 𝒜, which is nothing else as extending the point-wise product to the power series, is not allowed as it does not fulfil Condition (2) in Definition 4.1 (at least not if the Poisson bracket is nontrivial). In fact, the existence problem is highly nontrivial. In the symplectic case, different existence proofs, from different perspectives, were given by Marc De Wilde and Lecomte [52], Omori et al. [53, 54], and Fedosov [55, 56]. The general Poisson case was settled by Kontsevich [57].
4.3. Equivalence and Classification of Star Products
Definition 4.2. Given a Poisson manifold (M, {·, ·}). Two star products ⋆ and ⋆′ associated to the Poisson structure {·, ·} are called equivalent if and only if there exists a formal series of linear operators
For local star products in the general Poisson setting, there are complete classification results. Here I will only consider the symplectic case.
To each local star product ⋆, its Fedosov-Deligne class
This assignment gives a 1 : 1 correspondence between the formal deRham classes and the equivalence classes of star products.
For contractible manifolds, we have and hence there is up to equivalence exactly one local star product. This yields that locally all local star products of a manifold are equivalent to a certain fixed one, which is called the Moyal product. For these and related classification results, see [58–62].
4.4. Star Products with Separation of Variables
For our compact Kähler manifolds, we will have many different and even nonequivalent star products. The question is the following: is there a star product which is given in a natural way? The answer will be yes: the Berezin-Toeplitz star product to be introduced below. First we consider star products respecting the complex structure in a certain sense.
Definition 4.3 (Karabegov [63]). A star product is called star product with separation of variables if and only if
Recall that a local star product ⋆ for M defines a star product for every open subset U of M. We have just to take the bidifferential operators defining ⋆. Hence it makes sense to talk about ⋆-multiplying with local functions.
Proposition 4.4. A local ⋆ product has the separation of variables property if and only if in the bidifferential operators Ck(·, ·) for k ≥ 1 in the first argument only derivatives in holomorphic and in the second argument only derivatives in antiholomorphic directions appear.
In Karabegov′s original notation the rôles of the holomorphic and antiholomorphic functions are switched. Bordemann and Waldmann [64] called such star products star products of Wick type. Both Karabegov and Bordemann-Waldmann proved that there exist for every Kähler manifold star products of separation of variables type. In Section 4.8, we will give more details on Karabegov′s construction. Bordemann and Waldmann modified Fedosov′s method [55, 56] to obtain such a star product. See also Reshetikhin and Takhtajan [65] for yet another construction. But I like to point out that in all these constructions the result is only a formal star product without any relation to an operator calculus, which will be given by the Berezin-Toeplitz star product introduced in the next section.
Another warning is in order. The property of being a star product of separation of variables type will not be kept by equivalence transformations.
4.5. Berezin-Toeplitz Star Product
Theorem 4.5. There exists a unique (formal) star product ⋆BT for M
This theorem has been proven immediately after [1] was finished. It has been announced in [66, 67] and the proof was written up in German in [35]. A complete proof published in English can be found in [30].
For simplicity we might write
Next we want to identify this star product. Let KM be the canonical line bundle of M, that is, the nth exterior power of the holomorphic 1-differentials. The canonical class δ is the first Chern class of this line bundle, that is, δ : = c1(KM). If we take in KM the fibre metric coming from the Liouville form Ω, then this defines a unique connection and further a unique curvature (1,1)-form ωcan. In our sign conventions, we have δ = [ωcan].
Together with Karabegov the author showed the following theorem.
Theorem 4.6 (see [29].) (a) The Berezin-Toeplitz star product is a local star product which is of separation of variable type.
(b) Its classifying Deligne-Fedosov class is
(c) The classifying Karabegov form associated to the Berezin-Toeplitz star product is
The Karabegov form has not yet defined here. We will introduce it below in Section 4.8. Using K-theoretic methods, the formula for cl (⋆BT) was also given by Hawkins [68].
4.6. Star Product of Geometric Quantization
Tuynman′s result (3.21) relates the operators of geometric quantization with Kähler polarization and the BT operators. As the latter define a star product, it can be used to give also a star product ⋆GQ associated to geometric quantization. Details can be found in [30]. This star product will be equivalent to the BT star product, but it is not of the separation of variables type. The equivalence is given by the ℂ[[ν]]-linear map induced by
4.7. Trace for the BT Star Product
From (3.18) the following complete asymptotic expansion for m → ∞ can be deduced [30, 69]:
Proposition 4.7 (see [30].)The map Tr is a trace, that is, we have
4.8. Karabegov Quantization
In [63, 70] Karabegov not only gave the notion of separation of variables type, but also a proof of existence of such formal star products for any Kähler manifold, whether compact, noncompact, quantizable, or nonquantizable. Moreover, he classified them completely as individual star product not only up to equivalence.
He starts with (M, ω−1) a pseudo-Kähler manifold, that is, a complex manifold with a nondegenerate closed (1,1)-form not necessarily positive.
A formal form is called a formal deformation of the form (1/ν)ω−1 if the forms ωr, r ≥ 0, are closed but not necessarily nondegenerate (1,1)-forms on M. It was shown in [63] that all deformation quantizations with separation of variables on the pseudo-Kähler manifold (M, ω−1) are bijectively parameterized by the formal deformations of the form (1/ν)ω−1.
Assume that we have such a star product (𝒜 : = C∞(M)[[ν]], ⋆). Then for f, g ∈ 𝒜 the operators of left and right multiplications Lf, Rg are given by Lfg = f⋆g = Rgf. The associativity of the star-product ⋆ is equivalent to the fact that Lf commutes with Rg for all f, g ∈ 𝒜. If a star product is differential, then Lf, Rg are formal differential operators.
Karabegov constructs his star product associated to the deformation in the following way. First he chooses on every contractible coordinate chart U ⊂ M (with holomorphic coordinates {zk}) its formal potential
We have to mention that this original construction of Karabegov will yield a star product of separation of variable type but with the role of holomorphic and antiholomorphic variables switched. This says for any open subset U ⊂ M and any holomorphic function a and antiholomorphic function b on U that the operators La and Rb are the operators of point-wise multiplication by a and b, respectively, that is, La = a and Rb = b.
4.9. Karabegov′s Formal Berezin Transform
Given such a star products ⋆, Karabegov introduced the formal Berezin transform I as the unique formal differential operator on M such that for any open subset U ⊂ M, holomorphic functions a, and antiholomorphic functions b on U, the relation I(a · b) = b⋆a holds (see [71]). He shows that I = 1 + νΔ + ⋯, where Δ is the Laplace operator corresponding to the pseudo-Kähler metric on M.
Karabegov considered the following associated star products. First the dual star-product on M is defined for f, g ∈ 𝒜 by the formula
Next, the opposite of the dual star-product, , is given by the formula
How is the relation to the Berezin-Toeplitz star product ⋆BT of Theorem 4.5? There exists a certain formal deformation of the form (1/ν)ω which yields a star product ⋆ in the Karabegov sense. The opposite of its dual will be equal to the Berezin-Toeplitz star product, that is,
5. The Disc Bundle and Global Operators
In this section, we identify the bundles Lm over the Kähler manifold M as associated line bundles of one unique S1-bundle over M. The Toeplitz operator will appear as “modes” of a global Toeplitz operator. A detailed analysis of this global operator will yield a proof of Theorem 3.3 part (b) and part (c).
Moreover, we will need this set-up to discuss coherent states, Berezin symbols, and the Berezin transform in the next sections. For a more detailed presentation, see [35].
5.1. The Disc Bundle
We will assume that the quantum line bundle L is already very ample, that is, it has enough global holomorphic sections to embed M into projective space. From the bundle (as the connection ∇ will not be needed anymore, I will drop it in the notation)(L, h), we pass to its dual (U, k): = (L*, h−1) with dual metric k. Inside of the total space U, we consider the circle bundle
For the projective space ℙN(ℂ) with the hyperplane section bundle H as quantum line bundle, the bundle U is just the tautological bundle. Its fibre over the point z ∈ ℙN(ℂ) consists of the line in ℂN+1 which is represented by z. In particular, for the projective space the total space of U with the zero section removed can be identified with ℂN+1∖{0}. The same picture remains true for the via the very ample quantum line bundle in projective space embedded manifold M. The quantum line bundle will be the pull-back of H (i.e., its restriction to the embedded manifold) and its dual is the pull-back of the tautological bundle.
In the following we use E∖0 to denote the total space of a vector bundle E with the image of the zero section removed. Starting from the real-valued function on U, we define on U∖0 (the derivation is taken with respect to the complex structure on U) and denote by α its restriction to Q. With the help of the quantization condition (2.4), we obtain dα = τ*ω (with the deRham differential d = dQ) and that in fact μ = (1/2π)τ*Ω⋀α is a volume form on Q. Indeed α is a contact form for the contact manifold Q. As far as the integration is concerned we get
5.2. The Generalized Hardy Space
With respect to μ, we take the L2-completion L2(Q, μ) of the space of functions on Q. The generalized Hardy space ℋ is the closure of the space of those functions in L2(Q, μ) which can be extended to holomorphic functions on the whole disc bundle . The generalized Szegö projector is the projection
Sections of Lm = U−m can be identified with functions ψ on Q which satisfy the equivariance condition ψ(cλ) = cmψ(λ), that is, which are homogeneous of degree m. This identification is given via the map
5.3. The Toeplitz Structure
There is the notion of Toeplitz structure (Π, Σ) as developed by Boutet de Monvel and Guillemin in [28, 72]. I do not want to present the general theory but only the specialization to our situation. Here Π is the Szegö projector (5.4) and Σ is the submanifold
A (generalized) Toeplitz operator of order k is an operator A : ℋ → ℋ of the form A = Π · R · Π, where R is a pseudodifferential operator (ΨDO) of order k on Q. The Toeplitz operators constitute a ring. The symbol of A is the restriction of the principal symbol of R (which lives on T*Q) to Σ. Note that R is not fixed by A, but Guillemin and Boutet de Monvel showed that the symbols are well defined and that they obey the same rules as the symbols of ΨDOs. In particular, the following relations are valid:
5.4. A Sketch of the Proof of Theorem 3.3
For this we need only to consider the following two generalized Toeplitz operators.
- (1)
The generator of the circle action gives the operator Dφ = (1/i)(∂/∂φ), where φ is the angular variable. It is an operator of order 1 with symbol t. It operates on ℋ(m) as multiplication by m.
- (2)
For f ∈ C∞(M), let Mf be the operator on L2(Q, μ) corresponding to multiplication with τ*f. We set
(5.10)As Mf is constant along the fibres of τ, the operator Tf commutes with the circle action. Hence we can decompose(5.11)where denotes the restriction of Tf to ℋ(m). After the identification of ℋ(m) with Γhol(M, Lm), we see that these are exactly the Toeplitz operators introduced in Section 3. We call Tf the global Toeplitz operator and the the local Toeplitz operators. The operator Tf is of order 0. Let us denote by τΣ : Σ⊆T*Q → Q → M the composition, then we obtain for its symbol .
Now we are able to prove (3.10). First we introduce for a fixed t > 0
Quite similar, one can prove part (c) of Theorem 3.3 and more general the existence of the coefficients Cj(f, g) for the Berezin-Toeplitz star product of Theorem 4.5. See [30, 35] for the details.
6. Coherent States and Berezin Symbols
6.1. Coherent States
Let the situation be as in the previous section. In particular, L is assumed to be already very ample, U = L* is the dual of the quantum line bundle, Q ⊂ U the unit circle bundle, and τ : Q → M the projection. In particular, recall the correspondence (5.6) ψs(α) = α⊗m(sτ(α)) of m-homogeneous functions ψs on U with sections of Lm. To obtain this correspondence, we fixed the section s and varied a.
Now we do the opposite. We fix α ∈ U∖0 and vary the section s. Obviously, this yields a linear form on Γhol(M, Lm) and hence with the help of the scalar product (3.2), we make the following.
Definition 6.1. (a) The coherent vector (of level m) associated to the point α ∈ U∖0 is the unique element of Γhol(M, Lm) such that
(b) The coherent state (of level m) associated to x ∈ M is the projective class
Of course, we have to show that the object in (b) is well defined. Recall that 〈·, ·〉 denotes the scalar product on the space of global sections Γ∞(M, Lm). In the convention of this review, it will be antilinear in the first argument and linear in the second argument. The coherent vectors are antiholomorphic in α and fulfil
This kind of coherent states goes back to Berezin. A coordinate independent version and extensions to line bundles were given by Rawnsley [73]. It plays an important role in the work of Cahen et al. on the quantization of Kähler manifolds [74–77], via Berezin′s covariant symbols. I will return to this in Section 6.5. In these works, the coherent vectors are parameterized by the elements of L∖0. The definition here uses the points of the total space of the dual bundle U. It has the advantage that one can consider all tensor powers of L together on an equal footing.
Definition 6.2. The coherent state embedding is the antiholomorphic embedding
Here N = dim Γhol(M, Lm) − 1. In this review, in abuse of notation, τ−1(x) will always denote a non-zero element of the fiber over x. The coherent state embedding is up to conjugation the embedding of Section 2.9 with respect to an orthonormal basis of the sections. In [78] further results on the geometry of the coherent state embedding are given.
6.2. Covariant Berezin Symbols
We start with the following definition.
Definition 6.3. The covariant Berezin symbol σ(m)(A) (of level m ) of an operator A ∈ End(Γhol(M, L(m))) is defined as
As the factors appearing in (6.3) will cancel, it is a well-defined function on M. If the level m is clear from the context, I will sometimes drop it in the notation.
We consider also the coherent projectors used by Rawnsley
Again the projector is well defined on M. With its help, the covariant symbol can be expressed as
6.3. Rawnsley′s ϵ Function
Rawnsley [73] introduced a very helpful function on the manifold M relating the local metric in the bundle with the scalar product on coherent states. In our dual description, we define it in the following way.
Definition 6.4. Rawnsley's epsilon function is the function
With (6.3), it is clear that it is a well-defined function on M. Furthermore, using (6.1)
Proposition 6.5. For s1, s2 ∈ Γhol(M, Lm), we have
Proof. Due to (6.13), we can represent every section s locally at x as with a local function . Now
There exists another useful description of the epsilon function.
Proposition 6.6. Let s1, s2, …, sk be an arbitrary orthonormal basis of Γhol(M, Lm). Then
Proof. For every vector ψ in a finite-dimensional hermitian vector space with orthonormal basis sj, j = 1, …, k, the coefficient with respect to the basis element sj is given by ψj = 〈sj, ψ〉. Furthermore, . Using the relation (6.15) we can rewrite
In certain special cases, the functions ϵ(m) will be constant as a function of the points of the manifold. In this case, we can apply Proposition 6.11 below for A = id, the identity operator, and obtain
6.4. Contravariant Berezin Symbols
Recall the modified Liouville measure (6.14) and modified scalar product for the functions on M introduced in the last subsection.
Definition 6.7. Given an operator A ∈ End(Γhol(M, L(m))), then a contravariant Berezin symbol of A is defined by the representation of the operator A as integral
Proposition 6.8. The Toeplitz operator admits a representation (6.21) with
Proof. Let f ∈ C∞(M) and set
Note that given an operator its contravariant symbol on a fixed level m is not uniquely defined.
We introduce on End(Γhol(M, L(m))) the Hilbert-Schmidt norm
Theorem 6.9. The Toeplitz map and the covariant symbol map A → σ(m)(A) are adjoint:
As every operator has a contravariant symbol, we can also conclude
Proposition 6.10. The covariant symbol map σ(m) is injective.
Another application is the following.
Proposition 6.11.
Proof. We use Id = T1 and by (6.26) .
6.5. Berezin Star Product
Under certain very restrictive conditions, Berezin covariant symbols can be used to construct a star product, called the Berezin star product. Recall that Proposition 6.10 says that the linear symbol map
It is even possible to give an analytic expression for the resulting symbol. For this we introduce the two-point function
The crucial problem is how to relate different levels m to define for all possible symbols a unique product not depending on m. In certain special situations like these studied by Berezin himself [36] and Cahen et al. [74], the subspaces are nested into each other and the union 𝒜 = ⋃m∈ℕ𝒜(m) is a dense subalgebra of C∞(M). Indeed, in the cases considered, the manifold is a homogenous manifold and the epsilon function ϵ(m) is a constant. A detailed analysis shows that in this case a star product is given.
For further examples, for which this method works (not necessarily compact), see other articles by Cahen et al. [75–77]. For related results, see also work of Moreno and Ortega-Navarro [79, 80]. In particular, also the work of Engliš [46, 81–83]. Reshetikhin and Takhtajan [65] gave a construction of a (formal) star product using formal integrals in the spirit of the Berezin′s covariant symbol construction.
7. Berezin Transform
7.1. The Definition
Starting from f ∈ C∞(M), we can assign to it its Toeplitz operator and then assign to the covariant symbol . It is again an element of C∞(M).
Definition 7.1. The map
From the point of view of Berezin′s approach, the operator has as a contravariant symbol f. Hence I(m) gives a correspondence between contravariant symbols and covariant symbols of operators. The Berezin transform was introduced and studied by Berezin [36] for certain classical symmetric domains in ℂn. These results were extended by Unterberger and Upmeier [84]; see also Engliš [46, 81, 82] and Engliš and Peetre [85]. Obviously, the Berezin transform makes perfect sense in the compact Kähler case which we consider here.
7.2. The Asymptotic Expansion
The results presented here are joint work with Karabegov [29]. See also [86] for an overview.
Theorem 7.2. Given x ∈ M, then the Berezin transform I(m)(f) evaluated at the point x has a complete asymptotic expansion in powers of 1/m as m → ∞
Here the Δ is the usual Laplacian with respect to the metric given by the Kähler form ω.
Complete asymptotic expansion means the following. Given f ∈ C∞(M), x ∈ M, and an r ∈ ℕ, then there exists a positive constant A such that
7.3. Norm Preservation of the BT Operators
In [87] I conjectured (7.2) (which is now a mathematical result) and showed how such an asymptotic expansion supplies a different proof of Theorem 3.3, part (a). For completeness, I reproduce the proof here.
Proposition 7.3.
Proof. Using Cauchy-Schwarz inequality, we calculate (x = τ(α))
7.4. Bergman Kernel
To understand the Berezin transform better, we have to study the Bergman kernel. Recall from Section 5, the Szegö projectors Π : L2(Q, μ) → ℋ and its components , the Bergman projectors. The Bergman projectors have smooth integral kernels, the Bergman kernels ℬm(α, β) defined on Q × Q, that is,
Proposition 7.4.
For the proofs of this and the following propositions, see [29] or [86].
Let x, y ∈ M and choose α, β ∈ Q with τ(α) = x and τ(β) = y, then the functions
Proposition 7.5.
Typically, asymptotic expansions can be obtained using stationary phase integrals. But for such an asymptotic expansion of the integral representation of the Berezin transform, we will not only need an asymptotic expansion of the Bergman kernel along the diagonal (which is well known) but in a neighbourhood of it. This is one of the key results obtained in [29]. It is based on works of Boutet de Monvel and Sjöstrand [88] on the Szegö kernel and in generalization of a result of Zelditch [89] on the Bergman kernel on the diagonal. The integral representation is used then to prove the existence of the asymptotic expansion of the Berezin transform.
Having such an asymptotic expansion, it still remains to identify its terms. As it was explaining in Section 4.8, Karabegov assigns to every formal deformation quantizations with the “separation of variables” property a formal Berezin transform I. In [29] it is shown that there is an explicitly specified star product ⋆ (see [29, Theorem 5.9]) with associated formal Berezin transform such that if we replace 1/m by the formal variable ν in the asymptotic expansion of the Berezin transform I(m)f(x) we obtain I(f)(x). This finally proves Theorem 7.2. We will exhibit the star product ⋆ in the next section.
7.5. Identification of the BT Star Product
Moreover in [29] there is another object introduced, the twisted product
As already announced in Section 4.8, the BT star product ⋆BT is the opposite of the dual star product of a certain star product ⋆. To identify ⋆ we will give its classifying Karabegov form . As already mentioned above, Zelditch [89] proved that the the function um (7.13) has a complete asymptotic expansion in powers of 1/m. In detail he showed
7.6. Pullback of the Fubini-Study Form
Starting from the Kähler manifold (M, ω) and after choosing an orthonormal basis of the space Γhol(M, Lm), we obtain an embedding
It was shown by Zelditch [89], by generalizing a result of Tian [90], that (Φ(m)) *ωFS admits a complete asymptotic expansion in powers of 1/m as m → ∞. In fact it is related to the asymptotic expansion of the Bergman kernel (7.13) along the diagonal. The pull-back can be given as [89, Proposition 9]