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arXiv:quant-ph/0703266 · Journal of Mathematical Physics

Quantum mechanics with respect to different reference frames

L. Mangiarotti, Gennadi Aleksandrovich Sardanashvily

Published Aug 1, 2007• 6 citations
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Abstract

Geometric (Schrödinger) quantization of nonrelativistic mechanics with respect to different reference frames is considered. In classical nonrelativistic mechanics, a reference frame is represented by a connection on a configuration space fibered over a time axis R. Under quantization, it yields a connection on the quantum algebra of Schrödinger operators. The operators of energy with respect to different reference frames are examined.

DOI
10.1063/1.2769147

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Geometric (Schrödinger) quantization of nonrelativistic mechanics with respect to different reference frames is considered. In classical nonrelativistic mechanics, a reference frame is represented by a connection on a configuration space fibered over a time axis R. Under quantization, it yields a connection on the quantum algebra of Schrödinger operators. The operators of energy with respect to different reference frames are examined.
A reference frame F is described by the element g of the Poincaré group 𝒫 which connects F with a given fixed frame F0. If F is a quantum frame, defined by a physical object following the laws of quantum physics, the parameters of g have to be considered as quantum observables. However, these observables are not compatible and some of them, namely the coordinates of the origin of F, cannot be represented by self-adjoint operators. Both these difficulties can be overcome by considering a positive-operator-valued measure on 𝒫, covariant with respect to the left translations of the group, namely a covariance system. We develop a construction procedure for this kind of mathematical structure. The formalism is also used to discuss the quantum observables measured with respect to a quantum reference frame.
This paper is the first of two papers devoted to formulation of quantum mechanics of a particle in a normal geodesic frame of reference in the general Riemannian space-time. Here canonical quantization of geodesic motion in the 1+3-formalism is considered, the result of which will be compared in the subsequent paper II with that of the field-theoretical approach, see also gr-qc/9807030. The Schrödinger representation of quantum-mechanical kinematics and dynamics is presented in the general-covariant form and a physical interpretation of the state vectors and the position operators is discussed.
In physics, every observation is made with respect to a frame of reference. Although reference frames are usually not considered as degrees of freedom, in all practical situations it is a physical system which constitutes a reference frame. Can a quantum system be considered as a reference frame and, if so, which description would it give of the world? Here, we introduce a general method to quantise reference frame transformations, which generalises the usual reference frame transformation to a "superposition of coordinate transformations". We describe states, measurement, and dynamical evolution in different quantum reference frames, without appealing to an external, absolute reference frame, and find that entanglement and superposition are frame-dependent features. The transformation also leads to a generalisation of the notion of covariance of dynamical physical laws, to an extension of the weak equivalence principle, and to the possibility of defining the rest frame of a quantum system.
Recently, it was shown that when reference frames are associated to quantum systems, the transformation laws between such quantum reference frames need to be modified to take into account the quantum and dynamical features of the reference frames. This led to a relational description of the phase space variables of the quantum system of which the quantum reference frames are part of. While such transformations were shown to be symmetries of the system's Hamiltonian, the question remained unanswered as to whether they enjoy a group structure, similar to that of the Galilei group relating classical reference frames in quantum mechanics. In this work, we identify the canonical transformations on the phase space of the quantum systems comprising the quantum reference frames, and show that these transformations close a group structure defined by a Lie algebra, which is different from the usual Galilei algebra of quantum mechanics. We further find that the elements of this new algebra are in fact the building blocks of the quantum reference frames transformations previously identified, which we recover. Finally, we show how the transformations between classical reference frames described by the standard Galilei group symmetries can be obtained from the group of transformations between quantum reference frames by taking the zero limit of the parameter that governs the additional noncommutativity introduced by the quantum nature of inertial transformations.