Causal measurement in quantum field theory: spacetime
High Energy Physics - Theory
2026-04-06 v2 Quantum Physics
Abstract
We provide a framework and explicit construction for the regularized measurement of a large class of spacetime-localized observables in bosonic quantum field theory. The measurements fully satisfy relativistic causality and causal transparency, i.e., avoid unphysical superluminal signaling. We show explicitly how the measurement of time-extended observables back-reacts on itself and induces correlations between other measurements in its causal future. Our framework is fully compositional in spacetime and extends previous results on the measurement of instantaneous observables.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2511.06566,
title = {Causal measurement in quantum field theory: spacetime},
author = {Robert Oeckl},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.06566},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
40 pages, 6 figures; v2: minor corrections, changed numbering style in appendices to match published version