Quantizing the quantum uncertainty

DOI10.1016/J.AOP.2023.169470MaRDI QIDQ6065696zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Etera R. Livine

Publication date 15 November 2023

Published in Annals of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.01061

zbMATH Keywords

quantum field theoryquantum mechanicsquantum uncertaintySchrödinger field

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Theory of numerations, effectively presented structures (03D45) Representations of Lie algebras and Lie superalgebras, analytic theory (17B15) Extremal problems for conformal and quasiconformal mappings, variational methods (30C70) Estimates of eigenvalues in context of PDEs (35P15) Closed and approximate solutions to the Schrödinger, Dirac, Klein-Gordon and other equations of quantum mechanics (81Q05) Uncertainty relations, also entropic (81S07) Canonical quantization (81S08) Model quantum field theories (81T10)

Abstract: The spread of the wave-function, or quantum uncertainty, is a key notion in quantum mechanics. At leading order, it is characterized by the quadratic moments of the position and momentum operators. These evolve and fluctuate independently from the position and momentum expectation values. They are extra degrees of quantum mechanics compared to classical mechanics, and encode the shape of wave-packets. Following the logic that quantum mechanics must be lifted to quantum field theory, we discuss the quantization of the quantum uncertainty as an operator acting on wave-functions over field space and derive its discrete spectrum, inherited from the $extrm{sl}_2$ Lie algebra formed by the operators $hat{x}^2$, $hat{p}^2$ and $widehatxp$. We further show how this spectrum appears in the value of the coupling of the effective conformal potential driving the evolution of extended Gaussian wave-packets according to Schr"odinger equation, with the quantum uncertainty playing the same role as an effective intrinsic angular momentum. We conclude with an open question: is it possible to see experimental signatures of the quantization of the quantum uncertainty in non-relativistic physics, which would signal the departure from quantum mechanics to a QFT regime?

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Cites work

• Spectra of length and area in (2   1) Lorentzian loop quantum gravity

Cited in

(8)

• Uncertainty from Heisenberg to today
• Revealing a quantum feature of dimensionless uncertainty in linear and quadratic potentials by changing potential intervals
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 5568325 (Why is no real title available?)
• UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE FOR QUANTUM INSTRUMENTS AND COMPUTING
• Uncertainties in quantum measurements: a quantum tomography
• Quantum uncertainty as an intrinsic clock
• Real-valued observables and quantum uncertainty
• Quantum versus classical uncertainty

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