ON COHERENT-STATE REPRESENTATIONS OF QUANTUM-MECHANICS - WAVE MECHANICS IN PHASE-SPACE

In this article we argue that the state-vector phase-space representat ion recently proposed by Torres-Vega and co-workers [introduced in J. Chem. Phys. 98, 3103 (1993)] coincides with the totality of coherent-s tate representations for the Heisenberg-Weyl group. This fact leads to ambiguities when one wants to solve the stationary Schrodinger equati on in phase space and we devise two schemes for the removal of these a mbiguities. The physical interpretation of the phase-space wave functi ons is discussed and a procedure for computing expectation values as i ntegrals over phase space is presented. Our formal points are illustra ted by two examples. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.