Related papers: Time Symmetry in Operational Theories
This paper relates both to the metaphysics of probability and to the physics of time asymmetry. Using the formalism of decoherent histories, it investigates whether intuitions about intrinsic time directedness that are often associated with…
Although the laws of classical physics are deterministic, thermodynamics gives rise to an arrow of time through irreversible processes. In quantum mechanics the unitary nature of the time evolution makes it intrinsically reversible, however…
Understanding which physical processes are symmetric with respect to time inversion is a ubiquitous problem in physics. In quantum physics, effective gauge fields allow emulation of matter under strong magnetic fields, realizing the…
We introduce a self-adjoint operator that indicates the direction of time within the framework of standard quantum mechanics. That is, as a function of time its expectation value decreases monotonically for any initial state. This operator…
The use of a relational time in quantum mechanics is a framework in which one promotes to quantum operators all variables in a system, and later chooses one of the variables to operate like a ``clock''. Conditional probabilities are…
With CPT-invariant initial conditions that commute with CPT-invariant final conditions, the respective probabilities (when defined) of a set of histories and its CPT reverse are equal, giving a CPT-symmetric universe. This leads me to…
In a remarkable development Bender and coworkers have shown that it is possible to formulate quantum mechanics consistently even if the Hamiltonian and other observables are not Hermitian. Their formulation, dubbed PT quantum mechanics,…
Quantum theory brings into question the compatibility of the twin desiderata of exact knowability of the present state of the physical world and perfect predictability of its future states. Bohr's coordination-causality complementarity…
Predictions for measurement outcomes in physical theories are usually computed by combining two distinct notions: a state, describing the physical system, and an observable, describing the measurement which is performed. In quantum theory,…
From correlations in measurement outcomes alone, can two otherwise isolated parties establish whether such correlations are atemporal? That is, can they rule out that they have been given the same system at two different times? Classical…
In quantum mechanics time usually appears as classical parameter which means that it is treated as being essentially different from spatial coordinates that are represented by operators. On the other hand, relativity theory demands to treat…
The extrinsic quantum mechanical arrow of time is understood to be a consequence of the interaction between quantum systems and their environment. A choice of boundary conditions for the Schr\"odinger equation results in a different time…
The so-called preparation uncertainty can be understood in purely operational terms. Namely, it occurs when for some pair of observables, there is no preparation, for which they both exhibit deterministic statistics. However, the right-hand…
In the arrival time problem in quantum mechanics, a standard formula that frequently emerges as the probability for crossing the origin during a given time interval is the current integrated over that time interval. This is semiclassically…
Huw Price has proposed an argument that suggests a time-symmetric ontology for quantum theory must necessarily be retrocausal, i.e. it must involve influences that travel backwards in time. One of Price's assumptions is that the quantum…
In quantum mechanics, time is introduced as a non-measurable quantity, as there is no possibility to build a hermitian operator canonically conjugated to the Hamiltonian. We cannot have, therefore, the time operator, which means that the…
Time in relativity theory has a status different from that adopted by standard quantum mechanics, where time is considered as a parameter measured with reference to an external absolute Newtonian frame. This status strongly restricts its…
This paper serves as a bridge between quantum computing and analogical modeling (a general theory for predicting categories of behavior in varying contexts). Since its formulation in the early 1980s, analogical modeling has been…
It is well known that nonrelativistic quantum mechanics presents a clear asymmetry between space and time. Much of this asymmetry is attributed to the lack of Lorentz invariance of the theory. Nonetheless, a recent work [Phys. Rev. A…
In most approaches to fundamental physics, spacetime symmetries are postulated a priori and then explicitly implemented in the theory. This includes Lorentz covariance in quantum field theory and diffeomorphism invariance in quantum…