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Phys. Rev. D 66, 023510 (2002) [9 pages]

Relativistic quantum measurement

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Donald Marolf
201 Physics Building, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244

Carlo Rovelli
Centre de Physique Théorique, Luminy, F-13288 Marseille, France
Physics Department, Pittsburgh University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260

Received 10 April 2002; published 15 July 2002

Does the measurement of a quantum system necessarily break Lorentz invariance? We present a simple model of a detector that measures the spacetime localization of a relativistic particle in a Lorentz invariant manner. The detector does not select a preferred Lorentz frame as a Newton-Wigner measurement would do. The result indicates that there exists a Lorentz invariant notion of quantum measurement and sheds light on the issue of the localization of a relativistic particle. The framework considered is that of single-particle mechanics as opposed to field theory. The result may be taken as support for the interpretation postulate of the spacetime-states formulation of single-particle quantum theory.

© 2002 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.66.023510
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.66.023510
PACS:
98.80.Hw, 04.60.Kz