Local arrows of time in quantum many-body systems
Quantum Physics
2025-11-14 v1 Strongly Correlated Electrons
Abstract
We demonstrate that in quantum many-body systems, local arrows of time can differ from the global time induced by Hamiltonian evolution. That is, within a quantum many-body system, the flow of time can be relative to each observer or by proxy each local subsystem. We provide a definition of local arrows of time in quantum many-body systems, and explain their relation to spacetime quantum entropies. Then we give a variety of numerical and analytical examples which explore different ways in which local arrows of time can manifest in quantum many-body dynamics, including exotic arrows of time arising from quantum thermalization and quantum error correction.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2511.09758,
title = {Local arrows of time in quantum many-body systems},
author = {Andrew G. Yates and Jordan Cotler and Nishad Maskara and Mikhail D. Lukin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.09758},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
18+8 pages, 5 figures