1996/11/13 by G. Iannaccone, Iannaccone, G. · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mathematical and Theoretical Analysis #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/9611018
Talk given at the Adriatico Research Conference on ``Tunnelling and its implications'', 30 July--2 August 1996, ICTP, Trieste
arxiv created 1996/11/13 · openalex publication_date 1996/11/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The theory of weak measurement, proposed by Aharonov and coworkers, has been applied by Steinberg to the long-discussed traversal time problem. The uncertainty and ambiguity that characterize this concept from the perspective of von Neumann measurement theory apparently vanish, and joint probabilities and conditional averages become meaningful concepts. We express the Larmor clock and some other well-known methods in the weak measurement formalism. We also propose a method to determine higher moments of the traversal time distribution in terms of the outcome of a gedanken experiment, by introducing an appropriate operator. Since the weak measurement approach can sometimes lead to unphysical results, for example average negative reflection times and higher moments, the interpretation of the results obtained remains an open problem.