Boosting unstable particles
arXiv:2206.05125 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.106.042215
Abstract
In relativity, there is no absolute notion of simultaneity, because two clocks that are in different places can always be desynchronized by a Lorentz boost. Here, we explore the implications of this effect for the quantum theory of unstable particles. We show that, when a wavefunction is boosted, its tails travel one to the past and the other to the future. As a consequence, in the new frame of reference, the particle is in a quantum superposition "decayed + non decayed", where the property "decayed-ness" is entangled with the position. Since a particle cannot be localised in a region smaller than the Compton wavelength, there is a non-zero lower bound on this effect, which is fundamental in nature. The surprising implication is that, in a quantum world, decay probabilities can never be Lorentz-invariant. We show that this insight was the missing ingredient to reconcile the seemingly conflicting views about time dilation in relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory.
arXiv comment13 pages, 4 captioned figures, published on PRA, see https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.106.042215
References in corpus (21)
- Dark Matter Interpretation of the Neutron Decay Anomaly
- Radio detection of Cosmic-Ray Air Showers and High-Energy Neutrinos
- Decay photons from the ALP burst of type-II supernovae
- Neutrino Decays over Cosmological Distances and the Implications for Neutrino Telescopes
- Neutron lifetime puzzle and neutron -- mirror neutron oscillation
- Can we make sense of dissipation without causality?
- Constraints on neutrino decay lifetime using long-baseline charged and neutral current data
- Constraints on decay plus oscillation solutions of the solar neutrino problem
- When the entropy has no maximum: A new perspective on the instability of the first-order theories of dissipation
- Determining the Neutrino Lifetime from Cosmology
- Exploring a Non-Minimal Sterile Neutrino Model Involving Decay at IceCube and Beyond
- Unified Extended Irreversible Thermodynamics and the stability of relativistic theories for dissipation
- Decay Law of Relativistic Particles: Quantum Theory Meets Special Relativity
- Localization and Causality for a free particle
- Possible Emission of Cosmic -- and --rays by Unstable Particles at Late Times
- Measurement of the neutron lifetime and inverse quantum Zeno effect
- Which is the Quantum Decay Law of Relativistic Particles?
- Decay law and time dilatation
- Quantization of unstable linear scalar fields in static spacetimes
- The true face of quantum decay processes: Unstable systems in rest and in motion
- Moving unstable particles and special relativity