Springer Theory of Commuting Nonselfadjoint Operators: 332 (Mathematics and Its Applications, 332)

Theory of Commuting Nonselfadjoint Operators presents a systematic and cogent exposition of results hitherto only available as research articles. The recently developed theory has revealed important and fruitful connections with the theory of collective motions of systems distributed continuously in space and with the theory of algebraic curves. A rigorous mathematical definition of the physical concept of a particle is proposed, and a concrete image of a particle conceived as a localised entity in space is obtained. The duality of waves and particles then becomes a simple consequence of general equations of collective motions: particles are collective manifestations of inner states; waves are guiding waves of particles. The connection with the theory of algebraic curves is also important. For wide classes of pairs of commuting nonselfadjoint operators there exists the notion of a `discriminant' polynomial of two variables which generalises the classical notion of the characteristic polynomial for a single operator. A given pair of operators annihilate their discriminant. Divisors of corresponding line bundles play the main role in the classification of commuting operators. Audience: Researchers and postgraduate students in operator theory, system theory, quantum physics and algebraic geometry.