Related papers: Tomography of clock signals using the simplest pos…
Being able to measure time, whether directly or indirectly, is a significant advantage for an organism. It allows for the timely reaction to regular or predicted events, reducing the pressure for fast processing of sensory input. Thus,…
Being able to measure time, whether directly or indirectly, is a significant advantage for an organism. It permits it to predict regular events, and prepare for them on time. Thus, clocks are ubiquitous in biology. In the present paper, we…
The generation of time signals is a fundamental task in science. Here we study the relation between the quality of a time signal and the physics of the system that generates it. According to quantum theory, any time signal can be decomposed…
The statistical state of any (classical or quantum) system with non-trivial time evolution can be interpreted as the pointer of a clock. The quality of such a clock is given by the statistical distinguishability of its states at different…
Model checking timed automata becomes increasingly complex with the increase in the number of clocks. Hence it is desirable that one constructs an automaton with the minimum number of clocks possible. The problem of checking whether there…
Elementary particles, i.e. the basic constituents of nature, are characterized by quantum recurrences in time. The flow of time of every physical system can be therefore decomposed in elementary cycles of time. This allows us to enforce the…
Precise and autonomous clocks are of fundamental interest and central importance to both foundational studies and practical applications. Here, we construct a blueprint for a quantum clock governed by time-independent interactions. By…
We present a derivation of the structure and dynamics of a ticking clock by showing that for finite systems a single natural principle serves to distinguish what we understand as ticking clocks from time-keeping systems in general. As a…
Unlimited asynchronism is intolerable in real physically distributed computer systems. Such systems, synchronous or not, use clocks and timeouts. Therefore the magnitudes of elapsed absolute time in the system need to satisfy the axiom of…
We formalize the concept of subtime -- a reversible mode of information interchange within entangled systems -- and show how classical time emerges as an asymptotic limit through decoherence. Building on the photon clock model, in which a…
Even if a logical network consists of thermodynamically reversible gate operations, the computation process may have high dissipation rate if the gate implementation is controlled by external clock signals. It is an open question whether…
We propose that physical time is based on counting the oscillations of wave functions. The discrete counting of the ticks of these clocks does not depend on the metric frame. It remains well defined for the beginning epochs of the universe.…
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…
According to thermodynamics, the inevitable increase of entropy allows the past to be distinguished from the future. From this perspective, any clock must incorporate an irreversible process that allows this flow of entropy to be tracked.…
A quantum clock must satisfy two basic constraints. The first is a bound on the time resolution of the clock given by the difference between its maximum and minimum energy eigenvalues. The second follows from Holevo's bound on how much…
Fluctuations in a vast range of physical systems can be described as a superposition of uncorrelated pulses with a fixed shape, a process commonly referred to as a (generalized) shot noise or a filtered Poisson process. In this…
This document is focused on computing systems implemented in technologies that communicate and compute with temporal transients. Although described in general terms, implementations of spiking neural networks are of primary interest. As…
We prove a general ergodic-theoretic result concerning the return time statistic, which, properly understood, sheds some new light on the common sense phenomenon known as {\it the law of series}. Let \proc be an ergodic process on finitely…
We study the reachability problem for networks of timed communicating processes. Each process is a timed automaton communicating with other processes by exchanging messages over unbounded FIFO channels. Messages carry clocks which are…
Quantum theory reflects within itself a separation of evidence from explanations. This separation leads to a known proof that: (1) no wave function can be determined uniquely by evidence, and (2) any chosen wave function requires a guess…