Geometric Approach to Quantum Statistical Mechanics and Application to Casimir Energy and Friction Properties

Abstract

A geometric approach to general quantum statistical systems (including the harmonic oscillator) is presented. It is applied to Casimir energy and the dissipative system with friction. We regard the (N+1)-dimensional Euclidean {\it coordinate} system (X$^i$,$\tau$) as the quantum statistical system of N quantum (statistical) variables (X$^i$) and one {\it Euclidean time} variable ($\tau$). Introducing paths (lines or hypersurfaces) in this space (X$^i$,$\tau$), we adopt the path-integral method to quantize the mechanical system. This is a new view of (statistical) quantization of the {\it mechanical} system. The system Hamiltonian appears as the {\it area}. We show quantization is realized by the {\it minimal area principle} in the present geometric approach. When we take a {\it line} as the path, the path-integral expressions of the free energy are shown to be the ordinary ones (such as N harmonic oscillators) or their simple variation. When we take a {\it hyper-surface} as the path, the system Hamiltonian is given by the {\it area} of the {\it hyper-surface} which is defined as a {\it closed-string configuration} in the bulk space. In this case, the system becomes a O(N) non-linear model. We show the recently-proposed 5 dimensional Casimir energy (ArXiv:0801.3064,0812.1263) is valid. We apply this approach to the visco-elastic system, and present a new method using the path-integral for the calculation of the dissipative properties.