English

Time-energy uncertainty does not create particles

History and Philosophy of Physics 2020-12-30 v1 Quantum Physics

Abstract

In this contribution in honour of Paul Busch, we criticise the claims of many expositions that the time-energy uncertainty principle allows both a violation of energy conservation, and particle creation, provided that this happens for a sufficiently short time. But we agree that there are grains of truth in these claims: which we make precise and justify using perturbation theory.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2007.03030,
  title  = {Time-energy uncertainty does not create particles},
  author = {Bryan W. Roberts and Jeremy Butterfield},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.03030},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Forthcoming in Journal of Physics: Conference Proceedings, Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in Memoriam Paul Busch

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:53:51.216Z