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Poisson brackets on the space of histories. (English) Zbl 0805.58024

Summary: We extend the Poisson bracket from a Lie bracket of phase space functions to a Lie bracket of functions on the space of canonical histories and investigate the resulting algebras. Typically, such extensions define corresponding Lie algebras on the space of Lagrangian histories via pullback to a space of partial solutions. These are the same spaces of histories studied with regard to path integration and decoherence. Such spaces of histories are familiar from path integration and some studies of decoherence. For gauge systems, we extend both the canonical and reduced Poisson brackets to the full space of histories. We then comment on the use of such algebras in time reparametrization invariant systems and systems with a Gribov ambiguity, although our main goal is to introduce concepts and techniques for use in a companion paper.

MSC:

37J99 Dynamical aspects of finite-dimensional Hamiltonian and Lagrangian systems
81R50 Quantum groups and related algebraic methods applied to problems in quantum theory