Wigner Functions for Noncommutative Quantum Mechanics: a group representation based construction

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the construction and analysis of the Wigner functions for noncommutative quantum mechanics, their marginal distributions and star-products, following a technique developed earlier, {\it viz\/,} using the unitary irreducible representations of the group $\g$, which is the three fold central extension of the abelian group of $\mathbb R^4$. These representations have been exhaustively studied in earlier papers. The group $\g$ is identified with the kinematical symmetry group of noncommutative quantum mechanics of a system with two degrees of freedom. The Wigner functions studied here reflect different levels of non-commutativity -- both the operators of position and those of momentum not commuting, the position operators not commuting and finally, the case of standard quantum mechanics, obeying the canonical commutation relations only.