Department of Physics and
Physical Oceanography
Colloquium
“Time in Quantum Mechanics”
Dr. Curt Moyer
Department of Physics, University of North Carolina Wilmington
The treatment of time in quantum mechanics remains one of the challenging open
questions in the foundations of quantum theory. On the one hand, time is the
parameter entering the Schrödinger equation and measured by an external
laboratory clock. But time also plays the role of an observable in questions
involving the occurrence of an event (e.g. when a nucleon decays, or when a
particle emerges from a potential barrier), and like any observable should be
represented in the theory by an operator whose eigenstates and eigenvalues are
predictors of the outcome of [time] measurements made on physical systems. Yet
no time operators occur in ordinary quantum mechanics. At its core, this is the
quantum time problem. Following a brief historical review of the subject, I will
describe an approach to this problem that emphasizes time states over time
operators as the fundamental construct. Some specific results old and new will be
reported, and the broader implications for conventional quantum theory will be
addressed.
Friday, April 5, 2013
2:00 PM
DeLoach Hall, Room 212