We formulate quantum reference frames within the Dirac quantization of gauge theories, where physical states are obtained from a kinematical Hilbert space
Hkin by group averaging. We assume the gauge group
G is unimodular, and we define a quantum reference frame as a system of coherent states associated with a group
GR of frame orientations acting on a tensor factor of
Hkin. In direct analogy with the Faddeev-Popov procedure in path integrals, we show that the physical inner product can be written in terms of a choice of frame orientation with an appropriate operator measure, but that the physical Hilbert space is independent of this choice of frame. This yields a generalization of the Page-Wootters reduction map used to define conditional states and conditional probabilities of measurement outcomes given a frame orientation. These probabilities correspond to the expectation values of relational Dirac observables obtained from generalizations of previously considered relativization maps. Our main result is that the map that implements a change of frame is unitary, even when
G does not act as a tensor-product representation across a factorization of
Hkin. The formalism therefore accommodates interactions between reference frames and the systems described relative to them. We apply this formalism to temporal frames, showing that a unitary Schrödinger equation emerges for an interacting clock and system, and that a previously reported time-nonlocal Schrödinger equation is recovered in an appropriate limit. With this, problems of non-unitarity are avoided by the use of the gauge-fixing measure in the physical inner product. We also discuss the case of interacting spatial frames, where the known correspondence between coherence in one frame and entanglement in another is shown to depend on the coupling.
We generalize a quantum communication protocol introduced by Bartlett et al. [New J. Phys. 11, 063013 (2009)], in which two parties communicating do not share a classical reference frame, to the case where changes of their reference frames form a one-dimensional noncompact Lie group. Alice sends to Bob the state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{R}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}$, where ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}$ is the state of the system Alice wishes to communicate and ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{R}$ is the state of an ancillary system serving as a token of her reference frame. Because Bob is ignorant of the relationship between his reference frame and Alice's, he will describe the state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{R}\ensuremath{\bigotimes}{\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}$ as an average over all possible reference frames. Bob measures the reference token and applies a correction to the system Alice wished to communicate conditioned on the outcome of the measurement. The recovered state ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ is decohered with respect to ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}$, the amount of decoherence depending on the properties of the reference token ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{R}$. We present an example of this protocol when Alice and Bob do not share a reference frame associated with the one-dimensional translation group and use the fidelity between ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}$ and ${\ensuremath{\rho}}_{S}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ to quantify the success of the recovery operation.
The topic of quantum reference frames (QRFs) has attracted a great deal of attention in the recent literature. Potentially, the correct description of such frames is important for both the technological applications of quantum mechanics and for its foundations, including the search for a future theory of quantum gravity. In this letter, we point out potential inconsistencies in the mainstream approach to this subject and propose an alternative definition that avoids these problems. Crucially, we reject the notion that transformations between QRFs can be represented by unitary operators and explain the clear physical reasons for this. An experimental protocol, capable of empirically distinguishing between competing definitions of the term, is also proposed. The implications of the new model, for uncertainty relations, spacetime symmetries, gauge symmetries, the quantisation of gravity, and other foundational issues are discussed, and possible directions for future work in this field are considered.
We consider a general and practical scenario of quantum key distribution (QKD) over an unknown, stationary, unital qubit channel. Furthermore, due to practical limitations, e.g., relative movement and rotation of communicating parties, a global shared reference frame cannot be established. This scenario can routinely appear in satellite QKD. We propose two methods to overcome the physical qubit noise and the lack of shared reference frame. The first proposed approach involves constructing the Pauli transfer matrix (PTM) description of the channel, which we achieve without requiring a shared reference frame, by absorbing the lack of shared reference frame in the channel definition. This is followed by the identification of singular vectors of PTM as the Bloch vectors for optimal signal states. In the optimized local bases, the resulting correlations are equivalent, up to outcome relabeling, to those of a Pauli channel, allowing us to show the optimality of the BB84 and six-state QKD protocols under these conditions. The second approach, called the sequential basis matching (SBM) involves sequentially identifying the channel-optimized local bases that enable QKD. We show that both of these approaches result in the same effective key exchange rate for QKD.