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arXiv:2310.20074

Time of ocurrence observables: expanding to other symmetries

Vítor Cavalheri Pereira, J. C. A. Barata

Published Oct 30, 2023• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Recent works have proposed the use of the formalism of Positive Operator Valued Measures to describe time measurements in quantum mechanics. This work aims to expand on the work done by other authors, by generalizing the previously proposed construction method of such measures to include causal Poincaré transformations, in order to construct measures which are covariant with respect to such transformations.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2310.20074

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Recent works have proposed the use of the formalism of Positive Operator Valued Measures to describe time measurements in quantum mechanics. This work aims to expand on the work done by other authors, by generalizing the previously proposed construction method of such measures to include causal Poincaré transformations, in order to construct measures which are covariant with respect to such transformations.
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The question of time in quantum mechanics has been a topic of intense discussion since its inception. Dating back to the works of the founders of the subject, the notion of time and how it fit in the theory was already a point with a lack of a formal explanation, especially in aspects such as the uncertainty principle and canonical commutation relations. A theorem by Pauli set in stone that any attempt at trying to understand time with the formalism in use at the time for quantum mechanics was impossible. Through studies on the logical basis of the subject and establishing different sets of axioms, more modern works were able to relax sufficiently the impositions on the concept of observables so that time could then be understood as a generalized observable. Not only that, but it was shown that the correct way to interpret eventual time measurements was through the formalism of Positive Operator Valued Measures. Latest works then were focused in the direction of constructing either direct measures and time operators, or, in the case that was followed throughout this work, to establish a procedure to construct measures. This work was then an in-depth study of the work done by Brunetti and Fredenhagen, with the intent to do the first steps in generalizing their ideas by establishing their method to be covariant with respect to Poincaré transformations.
The problem of quantum time and evolution of quantum systems, where time is not a parameter, is considered. In our model, following some earlier works, time is represented by a quantum operator. In this paper, similarly to the position operators in the Schrödinger representation of quantum mechanics, this operator is a multiplication-type operator. It can be also represented by an appropriate positive operator-valued measure (POVM) which together with the 3D position operators/measures provide a quantum observable giving a position in the quantum spacetime. The quantum evolution itself is a stochastic process based on Lüder’s projection postulate. In fact, it is a generalization of the unitary evolution. This allows to treat time and generally the spacetime position as a quantum observable, in a consistent and observer-independent way.
We have previously shown that three approaches to relational quantum dynamics—relational Dirac observables, the Page-Wootters formalism and quantum deparametrizations—are equivalent. Here we show that this “trinity” of relational quantum dynamics holds in relativistic settings per frequency superselection sector. Time according to a clock subsystem is defined via a positive operator-valued measure (POVM) that is covariant with respect to the group generated by its (quadratic) Hamiltonian. This differs from the usual choice of a self-adjoint clock observable conjugate to the clock momentum. It also resolves Kuchař's criticism that the Page-Wootters formalism yields incorrect localization probabilities for the relativistic particle when conditioning on a Minkowski time operator. We show that conditioning instead on the covariant clock POVM results in a Newton-Wigner type localization probability commonly used in relativistic quantum mechanics. By establishing the equivalence mentioned above, we also assign a consistent conditional-probability interpretation to relational observables and deparametrizations. Finally, we expand a recent method of changing temporal reference frames, and show how to transform states and observables frequency-sector-wise. We use this method to discuss an indirect clock self-reference effect and explore the state and temporal frame-dependence of the task of comparing and synchronizing different quantum clocks.