Emergence of Constructor-Based Irreversibility in Quantum Systems: Theory and Experiment
Chiara Marletto, Vlatko Vedral, Laura T. Knoll +7 more
How irreversibility arises in a universe with time-reversal symmetric laws is a central problem in physics. In this Letter, we discuss a radically different take on the emergence of irreversibility, adopting the recently proposed constructor theory framework. Irreversibility is expressed as the requirement that a task is possible, while its inverse is not. We prove the compatibility of such irreversibility with quantum theory's time-reversal symmetric laws, using a dynamical model based on the universal quantum homogenizer. We also test the physical realizability of this model by means of an experimental demonstration with high-quality single-photon qubits.
arXiv:2009.14649•Physical Review Letters•Feb 23, 2022•9 citations