Related papers: Characteristic time operators as quantum clocks
I will provide a pedagogical introduction to non-Hermitian quantum systems that are PT-symmetric, that is they are left invariant under a simultaneous parity transformation (P) and time-reversal (T). I will explain how generalised versions…
The time operator, an operator which satisfies the canonical commutation relation with the Hamiltonian, is investigated, on the basis of a certain algebraic relation for a pair of operators T and H, where T is symmetric and H self-adjoint.…
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…
A time operator is a Hermitian operator that is canonically conjugate to a given Hamiltonian. For a particle in 1-dimension, a Hamiltonian conjugate operator in position representation can be obtained by solving a hyperbolic second-order…
A practical way to deal with the problem of time in quantum cosmology and quantum gravity is proposed. The main tool is effective equations, which mainly restrict explicit considerations to semiclassical regimes but have the crucial…
Time remains one of the least well understood concepts in physics, most notably in quantum mechanics. A central goal is to find the fundamental limits of measuring time. One of the main obstacles is the fact that time is not an observable…
The operational approach to time is a cornerstone of relativistic theories, as evidenced by the notion of proper time. In standard quantum mechanics, however, time is an external parameter. Recently, many attempts have been made to extend…
The conflict between quantum theory and the theory of relativity is exemplified in their treatment of time. We examine the ways in which their conceptions differ, and describe a semiclassical clock model combining elements of both theories.…
Microscopic quantum laws are time-symmetric: nothing in the Schr\"odinger equation or its relativistic extensions distinguishes future from past. Yet measurements produce irreversible records, an apparently one-way causal flow, and the…
A general `quantum history theory' can be characterised by the space of histories and by the space of decoherence functionals. In this note we consider the situation where the space of histories is given by the lattice of projection…
To determine the Hilbert space and inner product for a quantum theory defined by a non-Hermitian $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric Hamiltonian $H$, it is necessary to construct a new time-independent observable operator called $C$. It has recently…
A time operator $\hat T_\eps$ of the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator $ \hat h_\eps=\half(p^2+\eps q^2)$ is rigorously constructed. It is formally expressed as $ \hat T_\eps=\half\frac{1}{\sqrt \eps } (\arctan (\sqrt \eps \hat…
The decoherent histories approach to quantum theory is applied to a class of reparametrization invariant models, which includes systems described by the Klein-Gordon equation, and by a minisuperspace Wheeler-DeWitt equation. A key step in…
We discuss the use of histories labelled by a continuous time in the approach to consistent-histories quantum theory in which propositions about the history of the system are represented by projection operators on a Hilbert space. This…
In the first part of this paper the general perspective of history quantum theories is reviewed. History quantum theories provide a conceptual and mathematical framework for formulating quantum theories without a globally defined…
We prove under certain assumptions that there exists a solution of the Schrodinger or the Heisenberg equation of motion generated by a linear operator H acting in some complex Hilbert space H, which may be unbounded, not symmetric, or not…
Processes such as quantum computation, or the evolution of quantum cellular automata are typically described by a unitary operation implemented by an external observer. In particular, an interaction is generally turned on for a precise…
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…
The time operator for a quantum singular oscillator of the Calogero-Sutherland type is constructed in terms of the generators of the SU(1,1) group. In the space spanned by the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian, the time operator is not…
It has recently been shown that a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian H possessing an unbroken PT symmetry (i) has a real spectrum that is bounded below, and (ii) defines a unitary theory of quantum mechanics with positive norm. The proof of…