Related papers: Puzzling out the mass-superselection rule
The superposition principle is a very basic ingredient of quantum theory. What may come as a surprise to many students, and even to many practitioners of the quantum craft, is tha superposition has limitations imposed by certain…
The superposition principle lies at the heart of many non-classical properties of quantum mechanics. Motivated by this, we introduce a rigorous resource theory framework for the quantification of superposition of a finite number of linear…
The Schroedinger equation is up-to-a-phase invariant under the Galilei group. This phase leads to the Bargmann's superselection rule, which forbids the existence of the superposition of states with different masses and implies that unstable…
Bargmann's superselection rule, which forbids the existence of superpositions of states with different mass and, therefore, implies the impossibility of describing unstable particles in non-relativistic quantum mechanics, arises as a…
Recently proposed ``table-top tests of quantum gravity'' involve creating, separating and recombining superpositions of masses at non-relativistic speeds. The general expectation is that these generate superpositions of gravitational fields…
It is shown that for "ideal" macroscopic objects there are superselection rules forbidding superpositions of macroscopically distinguishable states of the objects. For real macroscopic bodies the notion of "weak" superselection rules is…
In quantum theory, physically measurable quantities of a microscopic system are represented by self-adjoint operators. However, not all of the self-adjoint operators correspond to measurable quantities. The superselection rule is a…
We show that Einstein equations are compatible with the presence of massive point particle idealization and find the corresponding two parameter family of solutions. They are complete defined by the bare mechanical mass $M>0$ and the…
The principle of linear superposition is a hallmark of quantum theory. It has been confirmed experimentally for photons, electrons, neutrons, atoms, for molecules having masses up to ten thousand amu, and also in collective states such as…
Some physicists believe that superselection rules should be implemented to get rid of inconsistencies when a theory is framed in terms of a new mathematical formulation, whilst others think that this new formulation should be modified…
The principle of mass additivity states that the mass of a composite object is the sum of the masses of its elementary components. Mass additivity is true in Newtonian mechanics but false in special relativity. Physicists have explained why…
We reinvestigate Bargmann's superselection rule for the overall mass of $n$ particles in ordinary quantum mechanics with Galilei invariant interaction potential. We point out that in order for mass to define a superselection rule it should…
In modern physics only relative quantities are considered to have physical significance. For example, position assigned to a system depends on the choice of coordinates, and only relative distances between different systems have physical…
All the Doubly Special Relativity (DSR) models studied in literature so far involve a deformation of the energy conservation rule that forces us to release the hypothesis of the additivity of the energy for composite systems. In view of the…
We consider the behavior of macroscopic bodies within the framework of relative locality, which is a recent proposal for Planck scale modifications of the relativistic dynamics of particles which are described as arising from deformations…
It is univocally anticipated that in a theory of quantum gravity, there exist quantum superpositions of semiclassical states of spacetime geometry. Such states could arise for example, from a source mass in a superposition of spatial…
If one takes seriously the postulate of quantum mechanics in which physical states are rays in the standard Hilbert space of the theory, one is naturally lead to a geometric formulation of the theory. Within this formulation of quantum…
The quasidistributions corresponding to the diagonal representation of quantum states are discussed within the framework of operator-symbol construction. The tomographic-probability distribution describing the quantum state in the…
A classic feature of gravity is that it is an attractive force. If a source mass is prepared in a localized (classical- like) state, it will cause another probe mass to move towards it. Here we consider the situation in which a source mass…
The equivalence principle in combination with the special relativistic equivalence between mass and energy, $E=mc^2$, is one of the cornerstones of general relativity. However, for composite systems a long-standing result in general…