2019/11/30 by Jianhao M. Yang · 23 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Open quantum system #Quantization (signal processing) #Quantum #Quantum Computing Algorithms and Architecture #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum operation #Quantum process #Quantum system #Redundancy (engineering) #Reference frame #Von Neumann architecture #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.22331/q-2020-06-18-283
published in Quantum 4, 283 (Verein zur Förderung des Open Access Publizierens in den Quantenwissenschaften) · Accepted version to the Quantum Journal. Changed LaTex style to quantumarticle style. Also added section 4.3 for the discussion of the Wigner-Araki-Yanase Theorem. 19 pages
openalex created_date 2019/11/22 · arxiv created 2020/06/13 · openalex publication_date 2020/06/18 · arxiv updated 2020/07/02 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Physical observation is made relative to a reference frame. A reference frame is essentially a quantum system given the universal validity of quantum mechanics. Thus, a quantum system must be described relative to a quantum reference frame (QRF). Further requirements on QRF include using only relational observables and not assuming the existence of external reference frame. To address these requirements, two approaches are proposed in the literature. The first one is an operational approach (F. Giacomini, et al, Nat. Comm. 10:494, 2019) which focuses on the quantization of transformation between QRFs. The second approach attempts to derive the quantum transformation between QRFs from first principles (A. Vanrietvelde, et al,<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"><mml:mtext class="MJX-tex-mathit" mathvariant="italic">Quantum</mml:mtext></mml:mrow></mml:math>4:225, 2020). Such first principle approach describes physical systems as symmetry induced constrained Hamiltonian systems. The Dirac quantization of such systems before removing redundancy is interpreted as perspective-neutral description. Then, a systematic redundancy reduction procedure is introduced to derive description from perspective of a QRF. The first principle approach recovers some of the results from the operational approach, but not yet include an important part of a quantum theory - the measurement theory. This paper is intended to bridge the gap. We show that the von Neumann quantum measurement theory can be embedded into the perspective-neutral framework. This allows us to successfully recover the results found in the operational approach, with the advantage that the transformation operator can be derived from the first principle. In addition, the formulation presented here reveals several interesting conceptual insights. For instance, the projection operation in measurement needs to be performed after redundancy reduction, and the projection operator must be transformed accordingly when switching QRFs. These results represent one step forward in understanding how quantum measurement should be formulated when the reference frame is also a quantum system.