At What Time Does a Quantum Experiment Have a Result?

Pashby, Thomas

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-68655-4_9

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

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“…With this, laboratory time is not only not an operator, it is not even a parameter, it is merely an expectation value of the fundamental operator t. Therefore Pauli's theorem [56,25] does not apply to it. We will continue to use clock time as a short hand for equation 22.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Time dispersion in quantum electrodynamics

Ashmead

2023

J. Phys.: Conf. Ser.

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If we use the path integral approach, we can write quantum electrodynamics (QED) in a way that is manifestly relativistic. However the path integrals are confined to paths that are on mass-shell. What happens if we extend QED by computing the path integrals over all paths in energy momentum space, not only those on mass-shell? We use the requirement of covariance to do this in an unambiguous way. This gives a QED where the time/energy components appear in a way that is manifestly parallel to the space/momentum components: we have dispersion in time, entanglement in time, full equivalence of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle (HUP) in time to the HUP in space, and so on. Entanglement in time has the welcome side effect of eliminating the ultraviolet divergences. We recover standard QED in the long time limit. We predict effects at scales of attoseconds. With recent developments in attosecond physics and in quantum computing, these effects should be detectable. Since the predictions are unambiguous and testable the approach is falsifiable. Falsification would sharpen our understanding of the role of time in QED. Confirmation would have significant implications for attosecond physics, quantum computing and communications, and quantum gravity.

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Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%