English

Two-state generator extraction: property currents and a two-layer arrow of time in pre- and post-selected quantum dynamics

Quantum Physics 2026-07-29 v1 Statistical Mechanics

Abstract

Conditioning on both past and future assigns intermediate-time properties a causal observer does not; these time-symmetric assignments obey exact symmetry theorems and are measurable from trajectories. We use two-state generator extended dynamic mode decomposition (gEDMD): because weak values obey dAw/dt=i[H,A]wdA_w/dt=i\langle[H,A]\rangle_w exactly, generator extraction, with an exact-derivative baseline, applies unchanged to them. First, a reflection involution on the pre-/post-selected ensemble splits every window-fitted friction uniquely as γfwd=γA+γS\gamma_{fwd}=\gamma_A+\gamma_S: γA\gamma_A, antisymmetric about the midpoint, carries the modes' boundary-condition physics; γS\gamma_S, symmetric, comes from the differencing scheme; both follow from the same data as (γfwd±γbwd)/2(\gamma_{fwd}\pm\gamma_{bwd})/2. At a fixed inference resolution the arrow of time has two layers: the coherent-mode arrow reverses at the midpoint, the fluctuation-level one does not, γS\gamma_S dominating γA\gamma_A at every size and class. The difference is one of degree: γS\gamma_S is 34 times larger there than at the mode layer, and with the exact derivative both layers reverse: immunity belongs to the inference, not the ensemble. Second, in a lattice interferometer conditioned only at its ports, the quantum Cheshire-cat structure emerges unimposed: particle and polarization obey separate continuity equations, and a local field in the polarization-carrying arm rotates that phase alone, at exactly twice the field strength, entering the generator as a rigid imaginary shift, while the particle's weak density stays invariant to machine precision. We verify the sample-level identity and the two layers from 282^8 to 2202^{20} dimensions: γA/γS=0.09|\gamma_A|/\gamma_S=0.09 to 0.270.27 across five classes; self-averaging makes it insensitive to class among those sharing a boundary modulation, removing the 2N/22^{-N/2} overlap obstruction for NN qubits.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.26999,
  title  = {Two-state generator extraction: property currents and a two-layer arrow of time in pre- and post-selected quantum dynamics},
  author = {Seiki Saito},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.26999},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

21 pages, 11 figures, 5 tables