Action for classical, quantum, closed and open systems

Abstract

It is well known that the action functional can be used to define classical, quantum, closed, and open dynamics in a generalization of the variational principle and in the path integral formalism in classical and quantum dynamics, respectively. These schemes are based on an unusual feature, a formal redoubling of the degrees of freedom. Several arguments to motivate the redoubling are put forward in classical and quantum mechanics to demonstrate that such a formalism is natural.