The author has earlier defined the quantum two-time localization problem as the minimizing of a particle's position spread about specified points at two distinct times. In the present article optimum localization is found for relativistic massive free particles. For short time intervals, spreading necessarily occurs at the speed of light while for long times the previously found diffusion-like behaviour is recovered. In defining relativistic localization, use is made of the work of Newton and Wigner (1949); in particular, their restriction to the positive energy hyperboloid is found to be necessary to recover the nonrelativistic limit of wavepacket spreading.
What does quantum error correction do to relativistic proper time? We show that when two error-corrected quantum memories follow distinct worldlines and are controlled by local references, their local correction histories factor exactly from the proper-time difference between them. Error correction therefore does not erase time dilation: when the memories are compared, the accumulated difference appears as a relational phase rotation. During locally referenced operation this rotation is invisible to every local error syndrome; at discrete phases admitted by a code, the final relational evolution instead returns exactly as a deterministic logical gate, including an
S-type Clifford gate at a
π/2 excursion. These results connect fault-tolerant quantum information with relativistic clocks and establish protected quantum memories as a platform for preserving proper-time information and for long-coherence tests of quantum evolution involving relativistic proper time.
Two related problems in relativistic quantum mechanics, the apparent superluminal propagation of initially localized particles, and the dependence of their localization on the motion of the observer, are analyzed in the context of the theory of constraints. Time and energy operators are introduced for the free relativistic particle, and a parametrization invariant formulation is obtained through Dirac constraint theory. The resulting description is of a system constrained in momentum and energy, but not in position or time, for which observables are constants of the motion. The Klein-Gordon equation is recovered on a physical Hilbert space, constructed via integration over the proper time from an augmented Hilbert space, wherein time and energy are dynamical variables...