Noncausal Page-Wootters circuits

Autor(en)

Veronika Baumann, Marius Krumm, Philippe Allard Guérin, Časlav Brukner

Abstrakt

One of the most fundamental open problems in physics is the unification of general relativity and quantum theory to a theory of quantum gravity. An aspect that might become relevant in such a theory is that the dynamical nature of causal structure present in general relativity displays quantum uncertainty. This may lead to a phenomenon known as indefinite or quantum causal structure, as captured by the process matrix formalism. Due to the generality of that framework, however, for many process matrices there is no clear physical interpretation. A popular approach towards a quantum theory of gravity is the Page-Wootters formalism, which associates to time a Hilbert space structure similar to spatial position. By explicitly introducing a quantum clock, it allows to describe time-evolution of systems via correlations between this clock and said systems encoded in history states. In this paper we combine the process matrix framework with a generalization of the Page-Wootters formalism in which one considers several agents, each with their own discrete quantum clock. We describe how to extract process matrices from scenarios involving such agents with quantum clocks, and analyze their properties. The description via a history state with multiple clocks imposes constraints on the implementation of process matrices and on the perspectives of the agents as described via causal reference frames. While it allows for scenarios where different definite causal orders are coherently controlled, we explain why certain noncausal processes might not be implementable within this setting.

Organisation(en)

Quantenoptik, Quantennanophysik und Quanteninformation

Externe Organisation(en)

Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (ÖAW), Università della Svizzera Italiana, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology (VCQ)

Journal

Physical Review Research

Band

4

Anzahl der Seiten

21

ISSN

2643-1564

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.4.013180

Publikationsdatum

03-2022

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

103025 Quantenmechanik, 103028 Relativitätstheorie

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Allgemeine Physik und Astronomie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/cce9c269-35a1-4e09-ae6f-3e064d60b19e