Temporal ordering in quantum mechanics

DOI10.1088/0305-4470/35/35/308zbMATH Open1066.81518arXivquant-ph/0003130OpenAlexW3102559555MaRDI QIDQ4466084

Author name not available (Why is that?)

Publication date: 9 June 2004

Published in: Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We examine the measurability of the temporal ordering of two events, as well as event coincidences. In classical mechanics, a measurement of the order-of-arrival of two particles is shown to be equivalent to a measurement involving only one particle (in higher dimensions). In quantum mechanics, we find that diffraction effects introduce a minimum inaccuracy to which the temporal order-of-arrival can be determined unambiguously. The minimum inaccuracy of the measurement is given by dt=1/E where E is the total kinetic energy of the two particles. Similar restrictions apply to the case of coincidence measurements. We show that these limitations are much weaker than limitations on measuring the time-of-arrival of a particle to a fixed location.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0003130

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15)