Some geometrical considerations of Berry’s phase

Abstract

A group-theoretic treatment is given of the new phase found by Berry in the adiabatic evolution of a quantum-mechanical system in a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. It is shown how the Berry phases for the various eigenstates of the Hamiltonian are obtained from a set of angles associated with a group element. For the special case of a two-level system there is just one such angle which corresponds to the holonomy transformation associated with parallel transport around a closed curve on a sphere.