Geometric phases and the Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization of multicomponent wave fields

Abstract

Geometric phases play an important role in the asymptotic behavior of multicomponent wave fields, such as electromagnetic waves in plasmas or quantum-mechanical spinors, particularly in the problem of Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization. The proper gauge independence of the eigenvalues and asymptotic wave functions can be understood in terms of gauge-invariant but noncanonical coordinates on the classical phase space.