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Journal of Mathematical Physics

Discrete self-adjointness and quantum dynamics. Travel times

Armando Martínez-Pérez, Gabino Torres-Vega

Published Jan 1, 2021• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We use a discrete derivative to introduce a time operator for non-relativistic quantum systems with point spectrum. The symmetry requirement on the time operator leads to well-defined time values related to the dynamics of discrete quantum systems. As an illustration, we find travel times between hits with the walls for the quantum particle in a box model. These times suggest a classical analog of time eigenstates. We also briefly consider the Woods–Saxon potential and propose classical analogs for it.

DOI
10.1063/5.0021565

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We use a discrete derivative to introduce a time operator for non-relativistic quantum systems with point spectrum. The symmetry requirement on the time operator leads to well-defined time values related to the dynamics of discrete quantum systems. As an illustration, we find travel times between hits with the walls for the quantum particle in a box model. These times suggest a classical analog of time eigenstates. We also briefly consider the Woods–Saxon potential and propose classical analogs for it.
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It is first shown that the Dirac's equation in a relativistic frame could be modified to allow discrete time, in agreement to a recently published upper bound. Next, an exact self-adjoint 4×44\times 44×4 relativistic time operator for spin-12\frac{1}{2}21​ particles is found and the time eigenstates for the non-relativistic case are obtained and discussed. Results confirm the quantum mechanical speculation that particles can indeed occupy negative energy levels with vanishingly small but non-zero probablity, contrary to the general expectation from classical physics. Hence, Wolfgang Pauli's objection regarding the existence of a self-adjoint time operator is fully resolved. It is shown that using the time operator, a bosonic field referred here to as energons may be created, whose number state representations in non-relativistic momentum space can be explicitly found.
Abstract It is first shown that the Dirac’s equation in a relativistic frame could be modified to allow discrete time, in agreement to a recently published upper bound. Next, an exact self-adjoint 4 × 4 relativistic time operator for spin-1/2 particles is found and the time eigenstates for the non-relativistic case are obtained and discussed. Results confirm the quantum mechanical speculation that particles can indeed occupy negative energy levels with vanishingly small but non-zero probablity, contrary to the general expectation from classical physics. Hence, Wolfgang Pauli’s objection regarding the existence of a self-adjoint time operator is fully resolved. It is shown that using the time operator, a bosonic field referred here to as energons may be created, whose number state representations in non-relativistic momentum space can be explicitly found .
In the search of a quantum momentum operator with discrete spectrum, we obtain some properties of the discrete momentum operator for nonequally spaced spectrum. We find the inverse operator. We use the matrix representation of these operators, and we find that there is one more eigenvalue and eigenfunction than the dimension of the matrix. We apply the results to obtain the discrete adjoint of the momentum operator. We conclude that we can have discrete operators which can be self-adjoint and that it is possible to define a self-adjoint extension of the corresponding Hilbert space. These results help us understand the quantum time operator.
In [Y. Strauss, Self-adjoint Lyapunov variables, temporal ordering and irreversible representations of Schrödinger evolution, J. Math. Phys. 51 (2010) 022104] a self-adjoint operator was introduced that has the property that it indicates the direction of time within the framework of standard quantum mechanics, in the sense that as a function of time its expectation value decreases monotonically for any initial state. In this paper we study some of this operatorʼs properties. In particular, we derive its spectrum and generalized eigenstates, and treat the example of the free particle.
We demonstrate that the time operator that measures the time of arrival of a quantum particle into a chosen state can be defined as a self-adjoint quantum-mechanical operator using periodic boundary conditions and applied to wave functions in energy representation. The time becomes quantized into discrete eigenvalues; and the eigenstates of the time operator, i.e., the stroboscopic wave packets introduced recently [Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 046402 (2008)], form an orthogonal system of states. The formalism provides simple physical interpretation of the time-measurement process and direct construction of normalized, positive definite probability distribution for the quantized values of the arrival time. The average value of the time is equal to the phase time but in general depends on the choice of zero time eigenstate, whereas the uncertainty of the average is related to the traversal time and is independent of this choice. The general formalism is applied to a particle tunneling through a resonant tunneling barrier in one dimension.