Relativistic quantum logic

Peter Mittelstaedt, Ernst-Walther Stachow

Barry C Sanders

Quantum computation has traditionally been formulated by postulating abstract information carriers and subsequently identifying physical systems that realize them. We adopt the opposite viewpoint and ask what computational structure is supplied by a fundamental relativistic quantum system itself. Focusing on the simplest nontrivial massive spin carrier, spin-1/2, we show that its relativistic description supplies a native four-dimensional information carrier through the Dirac equation. The resulting Dirac information carrier possesses an intrinsic positive- and negative-energy decomposition that induces a physics-constrained computational structure comprising sector-preserving and sector-coupling quantum logic. Restricting the relativistic computational structure to the positive-energy sector and taking the nonrelativistic regime recovers the familiar Pauli qubit description. We distinguish mathematical unitary transformations from physically admissible gates and show how charge-conjugation structure, charge superselection, and associated reference-frame resources can constrain quantum logic beyond the sector-preserving structure. Finally, under appropriate physical assumptions, we establish the conditions under which this structure supports full single-carrier controllability. Our work establishes the Dirac information carrier as the massive spin-1/2 instance of a broader programme in which computational structures are derived from the relativistic representation carried by the underlying physical system.

George Svetlichny

R. I. G. Hughes

Benjamin Eva

Topos quantum theory (TQT) represents a whole new approach to the formalization of non-relativistic quantum theory. It is well known that TQT replaces the orthomodular quantum logic of the traditional Hilbert space formalism with a new intuitionistic logic that arises naturally from the topos theoretic structure of the theory. However, it is less well known that TQT also has a dual logical structure that is paraconsistent. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between these two logical structures and study the implications of this relationship for the definition of modal operators in TQT.

Peter Mittelstaedt