Quantum fields and local measurements (Q2192713)

The authors establish a clear and systematic account of how probes may be used to measure local properties of a quantum field together with their relation to observables of the quantum field, in the algebraic framework of quantum field theory on globally hyperbolic spacetimes. After some informative preliminaries, the authors introduce a general framework in which two physical systems, the `system' and the `probe', are coupled together such that the coupling is taken to be effective only in a compact spacetime coupling region \(K\). So the the probe and system can be prepared in some known states \(\sigma\) and \(\omega\) at `early times' during which they are uncoupled, and they become uncoupled again at `late times' during which an observable \(B\) of the probe is measured. The authors show that the expected value of the resulting measurement coincides with the expected value of an induced system observable \(\varepsilon_\sigma(B)\) in a hypothetical measurement in the system state \(\omega\). However, the variance of the actual measurement typically exceeds that of the hypothetical measurement, due to detector fluctuations. Under reasonable assumptions concerning the coupling the authors show that \(\varepsilon_\sigma(B)\) would be localized in suitable neighborhoods of the causal hull of \(K\) regardless of what the localization of \(B\) is and where the measurement reading is occurred. However, if \(B\) is localized in the causal complement of \(K\), the induced system observable is a multiple of the unit, from which no information concerning the system can be extracted. The authors also give an account of positive operator valued measures in this framework. The authors discuss selective and non-selective measurements, introducing the concept of a pre-instrument as a map that sends system states to `post-selected' states conditioned on the observation of an effect. In particular, they show that at spacelike separation from the coupling region the original and post-selected states agree only on observables that are uncorrelated, in the original state, with the system observable induced by the measured probe effect. The authors show that the post-selection may be performed sequentially in any valid causal order, or in a combined single stage, with the same outcome. In particular, where the coupling regions are causally disjoint the post-selection may be performed in either order. They also show that if there is a global gauge group acting on both system and probe, under which the coupling transforms covariantly, then gauge invariant probe observables induce gauge invariant system observables. As a concrete example, the authors study a specific system-probe model consisting of two free real scalar fields with a quadratic interaction between them with a spacetime dependent coupling factor of compact support.