Ahmed Youssef

We investigate the consistency of coherent state (or Berezin-Klauder-Toeplitz, or anti-Wick) quantization in regard to physical observations in the non- relativistic (or Galilean) regime. We compare this procedure with the canonical quantization (on both mathematical and physical levels) and examine whether they are or not equivalent in their predictions: is it possible to dif- ferentiate them on a strictly physical level? As far as only usual dynamical observables (position, momentum, energy, ...) are concerned, the quantization through coherent states is proved to be a perfectly valid alternative. We successfully put to the test the validity of CS quantization in the case of data obtained from vibrational spectroscopy (data that allowed to validate canonical quantization in the early period of Quantum Mechanics).

We study the infrared (long distance) behavior of the free photon field in de Sitter spacetime. Using a two-parameter family of gauge fixing terms, we show that the infrared (IR) behavior of the two-point function is highly gauge-dependent and ranges from vanishing to growing. This situation is in disagreement with its counterpart in flat spacetime, where the two-point function vanishes in the IR for any choice of the gauge fixing parameters. A criterion to isolate the "physical" part of the two-point function is given and is shown to lead to a well-behaved two-point function in the IR.

We study the infrared (long-distance) behavior of the free photon field in de~Sitter spacetime. Using a two-parameter family of gauge-fixing terms, we show that the infrared (IR) behavior of the two-point function is highly gauge-dependent and ranges from vanishing to growing. This situation is in disagreement with its counterpart in flat spacetime, where the two-point function vanishes in the IR region for any choice of the gauge-fixing parameters. A criterion to isolate the physical part of the two-point function is given and is shown to lead to a well-behaved two-point function in the IR region.

In order to assess the role of ghosts in cosmology, we study the evolution of linear cosmological perturbations during inflation when a Weyl term is added to the action. Our main results are that vector perturbations can no longer be ignored and that scalar modes diverge in the newtonian gauge but remain bounded in the comoving slicing.

We present a construction of semi-classical states for P\"oschl-Teller potentials based on a supersymmetric quantum mechanics approach. The parameters of these "coherent" states are points in the classical phase space of these systems. They minimize a special uncertainty relation. Like standard coherent states they resolve the identity with a uniform measure. They permit to establish the correspondence (quantization) between classical and quantum quantities. Finally, their time evolution is localized on the classical phase space trajectory.