The Hamiltonian Form of the KdV Equation: Multiperiodic Solutions and Applications to Quantum Mechanics

In the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, both matrix mechanics (developed by Born, Heisenberg and Jordon) and wave mechanics (developed by Schrödinger) prevailed. These early attempts corresponded to the quantum mechanics of particles. Matrix mechanics was found to lead directly to the Schrödinger equation, and the Schrödinger equation could be used to derive the alternative problem for matrix mechanics. Later emphasis lay on the development of the dynamics of fields, where the classical field equations were quantized (see, for example, Weinberg). Today, quantum field theory is one of the most successful physical theories ever developed. The symmetry between particle and wave mechanics is exploited herein. One of the important properties of quantum mechanics is that it is linear, leading to some confusion about how to treat the problem of nonlinear classical field equations. In the present paper we address the case of classical nonlinear soliton equations which are exactly integrable in terms of the periodic/quasiperiodic inverse scattering transform. This means that all physical spectral solutions of the soliton equations can be computed exactly for these specific boundary conditions. Unfortunately, such solutions are highly nonlinear, leading to difficulties in solving the associated quantum mechanical problems. Here we find a strategy for developing the quantum mechanical solutions for soliton dynamics. To address this difficulty, we apply a recently derived result for soliton equations, i.e., that all solutions can be written as quasiperiodic Fourier series. This means that soliton equations, in spite of their nonlinear solutions, are perfectly linearizable with quasiperiodic boundary conditions, the topic of finite gap theory, i.e., the inverse scattering transform with periodic/quasiperiodic boundary conditions. We then invoke the result that soliton equations are Hamiltonian, and we are able to show that the generalized coordinates and momenta also have quasiperiodic Fourier series, a generalized linear superposition law, which is valid in the case of nonlinear, integrable classical dynamics and is here extended to quantum mechanics. Hamiltonian dynamics with the quasiperiodicity of inverse scattering theory thus leads to matrix mechanics. This completes the main theme of our paper, i.e., that classical, nonlinear soliton field equations, linearizable with quasiperiodic Fourier series, can always be quantized in terms of matrix mechanics. Thus, the solitons and their nonlinear interactions are given an explicit description in quantum mechanics. Future work will be formulated in terms of the associated Schrödinger equation.