Relativistic Bohmian trajectories of photons via weak measurements
arXiv:2108.05169 · doi:10.1038/s41467-022-31608-6
Abstract
Bohmian mechanics is a nonlocal hidden-variable interpretation of quantum theory which predicts that particles follow deterministic trajectories in spacetime. Historically, the study of Bohmian trajectories has mainly been restricted to nonrelativistic regimes due to the widely held belief that the theory is incompatible with special relativity. Here we derive expressions for the relativistic velocity and spacetime trajectories of photons in a Michelson-Sagnac-type interferometer. The trajectories satisfy quantum-mechanical continuity and the relativistic velocity addition rule. Our new velocity equation is operationally defined in terms of weak measurements of momentum and energy. We finally propose a modified Alcubierre metric which could give rise to these trajectories within the paradigm of general relativity.
11 pages, 6 figures. Published in Nature Communications
References in corpus (6)
- Anomalous Weak Values Are Proofs of Contextuality
- Precision frequency measurements with interferometric weak values
- Grounding Bohmian Mechanics in Weak Values and Bayesianism
- Subcycle Quantum Electrodynamics
- Anomalous weak values via a single photon detection
- Boson-fermion unification, superstrings, and Bohmian mechanics