Related papers: Clocks And Dynamics In Quantum Mechanics
Time dilation is a difference in measured time between two clocks that either move with different velocities or experience different gravitational potentials. Both of these effects stem from the theory of relativity and are usually…
The theory of relativity associates a proper time with each moving object via its world line. In quantum theory however, such well-defined trajectories are forbidden. After introducing a general characterisation of quantum clocks, we…
In relational quantum dynamics, evolution emerges via the correlations between some system of interest and a clock system, which plays the role of a temporal reference frame. Their combined state satisfies a Wheeler-de Witt-like constraint…
Quantum theory and relativity offer different conceptions of time. To explore the conflict between them, we study a quantum version of the light-clock commonly used to illustrate relativistic time dilation. This semiclassical model combines…
Time is a parameter playing a central role in our most fundamental modelling of natural laws. Relativity theory shows that the comparison of times measured by different clocks depends on their relative motion and on the strength of the…
All clocks, classical or quantum, are open non equilibrium irreversible systems subject to the constraints of thermodynamics. Using examples I show that these constraints necessarily limit the performance of clocks and that good clocks…
Standard quantum mechanics undeniably violates the notion of separability that classical physics accustomed us to consider as valid. By relating the phenomenon of quantum nonseparability to the all-important concept of potentiality, we…
Dynamics, the study of change, is normally the subject of mechanics. Whether the chosen mechanics is ``fundamental'' and deterministic or ``phenomenological'' and stochastic, all changes are described relative to an external time. Here we…
Quantum mechanics can emerge from classical statistics. A typical quantum system describes an isolated subsystem of a classical statistical ensemble with infinitely many classical states. The state of this subsystem can be characterized by…
Quantum mechanics postulates the existence of states determined by a particle position at a single time. This very concept, in conjunction with superposition, induces much of the quantum-mechanical structure. In particular, it implies the…
According to relativity, the reading of an ideal clock is interpreted as the elapsed proper time along its classical trajectory through spacetime. In contrast, quantum theory allows the association of many simultaneous trajectories with a…
Quantum mechanical time operator is introduced following the parametric formulation of classical mechanics in the extended phase space. Quantum constraint on the extended quantum system is defined in analogy to the constraint of the…
In thermodynamics, quantum coherences - superpositions between energy eigenstates - behave in distinctly nonclassical ways. Recently mathematical frameworks have emerged to account for these features and have provided a range of novel…
We show that a new interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the notion of event is defined without reference to measurement or observers, allows to construct a quantum general ontology based on systems, states and events. Unlike the…
Within ordinary ---unitary--- quantum mechanics there exist global protocols that allow to verify that no definite event ---an outcome to which a probability can be associated--- occurs. Instead, states that start in a coherent…
A realist description of our universe requires a twofold concept of locality. On one hand, there are the strictly Einstein-local interactions which generate the time evolution. On the other hand, the quantum state space calls for a…
It has often been suggested that retrocausality offers a solution to some of the puzzles of quantum mechanics: e.g., that it allows a Lorentz-invariant explanation of Bell correlations, and other manifestations of quantum nonlocality,…
The debate on the nature of quantum probabilities in relation to Quantum Non Locality has elevated Quantum Mechanics to the level of an "Operational Epistemic Theory". In such context the quantum superposition principle has an extraneous…
A pedagogical introduction is given to the quantum mechanics of closed systems, most generally the universe as a whole. Quantum mechanics aims at predicting the probabilities of alternative coarse-grained time histories of a closed system.…
This paper investigates the relationship between subsystems and time in a closed nonrelativistic system of interacting bosons and fermions. It is possible to write any state vector in such a system as an unentangled tensor product of…