1992/10/09 by Bo-Sture Skagerstam, Bo-Sture K Skagerstam, Skagerstam, Bo-Sture K · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Mechanics and Non-Hermitian Physics #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.hep-th/9210054
22 pages, ITP 92-09, LaTeX
arxiv created 1992/10/09 · openalex publication_date 1992/10/09 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The components of the position operator, at a fixed time, for a massless and spinning particle with given helicity λ described in terms of bosonic degrees of freedom have an anomalous commutator proportional to λ. The position operator generates translations in momentum space. We show that a ray-representation for these translations emerges due to the non-commuting components of the position operators and relate this to the Berry-phase for photons. The Tomita-Chiao experiment then gives support for this relativistic and quantum mechanical description of photons in terms of non-commuting position operators.