QUANTIZATION AND SUPERSELECTION SECTORS II: DIRAC MONOPOLE AND AHARONOV-BOHM EFFECT

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Abstract
The quantization procedure of the preceding paper is applied to study two generic topological quantum effects, viz. the charge quantization induced by (abelian) magnetic monopoles, and the Aharonov-Bohm effect. Prior to these applications, a general procedure is given for reducing unitary representations of a locally compact G which are induced by nontrivial unitary representations of H⊂G. This involves the use of spherical trace functions, and is useful in the determination of the eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian of the particle in a given superselection sector. Such Hamiltonians, implementing the time-evolution on the given abstract C*-algebra, are explicitly constructed and analyzed. The relevant quantum effects are found to be a consequence of the representation theory of the appropriate algebras of observables. In this way a group- and operator-theoretic elucidation of the mathematical structure of the given systems is attempted. This paper may be read independently of its predecessor.

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