Relativistic quantum theory shows that the known Einstein time dilation (ED) approximately holds for the decay law of the unstable particle having definite momentum p (DP). I use a different definition of the moving particle as the state with definite velocity v (DV). It is shown that in this case the decay law is not dilated. On the contrary, it is contracted as compared with the decay law of the particle at rest. It is demonstrated that ED fails in both DP and DV cases for time evolution of the simple unstable system of the kind of oscillating neutrino. Experiments are known which show that ED holds for mesons. The used theory may explain the fact by supposing that the measured mesons are in DP state.
The transformation of canonical decay laws of moving unstable quantum systems is studied by approximating, over intermediate times, the decay laws at rest with superpositions of exponential modes via the Prony analysis. The survival probability $\mathcal{P}_p(t)$, which is detected in the laboratory reference frame where the unstable system moves with constant linear momentum $p$, is represented by the transformed form $\mathcal{P}_0\left(φ_p(t)\right)$ of the survival probability at rest $\mathcal{P}_0(t)$. The transformation of the intermediate times, which is induced by the change of refere…
The relativistic quantum decay laws of moving unstable particles are analyzed for a general class of mass distribution densities which behave as power laws near the (non-vanishing) lower bound $μ_0$ of the mass spectrum. The survival probability $\mathcal{P}_p(t)$, the instantaneous mass $M_p(t)$ and the instantaneous decay rate $Γ_p(t)$ of the moving unstable particle are evaluated over short and long times for an arbitrary value $p$ of the (constant) linear momentum. The ultrarelativistic and non-relativistic limits are studied. Over long times, the survival probability $\mathcal{P}_p(t)$ is…
Decay laws of moving unstable quantum systems with oscillating decay rates are analyzed over intermediate times. The transformations of the decay laws at rest and of the intermediate times at rest, which are induced by the change of reference frame, are obtained by decomposing the modulus of the survival amplitude at rest into purely exponential and exponentially damped oscillating modes. The mass distribution density is considered to be approximately symmetric with respect to the mass of resonance. Under determined conditions, the modal decay widths at rest, $Γ_j$, and the modal frequencies o…
The decay of a moving system is studied in case the system is initially prepared in a two-mass unstable quantum state. The survival probability $\mathcal{P}_p(t)$ is evaluated over short and long times in the reference frame where the unstable system moves with constant linear momentum $p$. The mass distribution densities of the two mass states are tailored as power laws with powers $α_1$ and $α_2$ near the non-vanishing lower bounds $μ_{0,1}$ and $μ_{0,2}$ of the mass spectra, respectively. If the powers $α_1$ and $α_2$ differ, the long-time survival probability $\mathcal{P}_p(t)$ exhibits a …
A new quantum effect connected with the late time behavior of decaying states is described and its possible observational consequences are analyzed: It is shown that charged unstable particles as well as neutral unstable particles with non--zero magnetic moment which live sufficiently long may emit electromagnetic radiation. This mechanism is due to the nonclassical behavior of unstable particles at late times (at the post exponential time region). Analyzing the transition times region between exponential and non-exponential form of the survival amplitude it is found that the instantaneous ene…
We study the survival probability of moving relativistic unstable particles with definite momentum $\vec{p} \neq 0$. The amplitude of the survival probability of these particles is calculated using its integral representation. We found decay curves of such particles for the quantum mechanical models considered. These model studies show that late time deviations of the survival probability of these particles from the exponential form of the decay law, that is the transition times region between exponential and non-expo\-nen\-tial form of the survival probability, should occur much earlier than …
In the classical (non-quantum) relativity theory the course of the moving clock is dilated as compared to the course of the clock at rest (the Einstein dilation). Any unstable system may be regarded as a clock. The time evolution (e.g., the decay) of a uniformly moving physical system is considered using the relativistic quantum theory. The example of a moving system is given whose evolution turns out to be speeded-up instead of being dilated. A discussion of this paradoxical result is presented.
In this work, we study quantum evolution of an open moving-qubit modulated by a classical driving field. We obtain the density operator of qubit at zero temperature and analyze its quantum evolution dynamics by using quantum speed limit time (QSLT) and a non-Markovianity measure introduced recently. The results show that both the non-Markovian environment and the classical driving can speed up the evolution process, this quantum speedup process is induced by the non-Markovianity and the critical points only depend on the qubit velocity. Moreover, the qubit motion will delay the evolution proce…
Due to the exponential increase of the numerical effort with the number of degrees of freedom, moving basis functions have a long history in quantum dynamics. In addition, spawning of new basis functions is routinely applied. Here we advocate the opposite process: the programmed removal of motional freedom of selected basis functions. This is a necessity for converged numerical results with respect to the size of a non-orthogonal basis, because generically two or more states approach each other too closely early on, rendering unstable the matrix inversion, required to make the equations of mot…
After reviewing the description of an unstable state in the framework of Lee Hamiltonians (valid both for Quantum Mechanics (QM) and Quantum Field Theory (QFT)), we consider some theoretical aspects of non-exponential decays: the case of two decay channels, the broadening of the energy spectrum at short times, the effect of an imperfect measurement, the link to QFT, and the decay of an unstable moving particle with definite momentum. All the presented effects were not confirmed in experiments, hence are at the present stage predictions.
The long time behavior of the reduced time evolution operator for unstable multilevel systems is studied based on the N-level Friedrichs model in the presence of a zero energy resonance.The latter means the divergence of the resolvent at zero energy. Resorting to the technique developed by Jensen and Kato [Duke Math. J. 46, 583 (1979)], the zero energy resonance of this model is characterized by the zero energy eigenstate that does not belong to the Hilbert space. It is then shown that for some kinds of the rational form factors the logarithmically slow decay of the reduced time evolution oper…
We study the short-time and medium-time behavior of the survival probability in the frame of the $N$-level Friedrichs model. The time evolution of an arbitrary unstable initial state is determined. We show that the survival probability may oscillate significantly during the so-called exponential era. This result explains qualitatively the experimental observations of the NaI decay.
Geometric phase in the wave function is important with regard to quantum non-locality and adiabatic evolution. We study the confinement of a particle by three-dimensional isotropically moving walls, of relevance to experimental trapping techniques, via a proposed approach that explains the physical origin of the geometric Dirac phase induced in the wave function. This phase depends only on the relative rate of change of the spatial scale factor. The approach also yields the class of external potentials that replicate adiabatic evolution in finite time. As illustrative examples, we consider uni…
Based on a fully relativistic framework and the assumption of local equilibrium, we describe a simple mechanism of quantum friction for a particle moving parallel to a dielectric. The Cherenkov effect explains how the bare ground state becomes globally unstable and how fluctuations of the electromagnetic field and the particle's dipole are converted into pairs of excitations. Modelling the particle as a silver nano-sphere, we investigate the spectrum of the force and its velocity dependence. We find that the damping of the plasmon resonance in the silver particle has a relatively strong impact…
An effect generated by the nonexponential behavior of the survival amplitude of an unstable state at the long time region is considered. It is known that this amplitude tends to zero as $t$ goes to the infinity more slowly than any exponential function of $t$. Using methods of asymptotic analysis we find the asymptotic form of this amplitude in the long time region in a general model independent case. We find that the long time behavior of this amplitude affects the form of the energy of unstable states: This energy should be much smaller for suitably long times $t$ than the energy of this sta…
In this work the evolution of a wavefunction in an infinite potential well with time dependent boundaries is investigated. Previous methods for wells with walls moving at a constant velocity are summarised. These methods are extended to wells with slowly accelerating walls. The location and time of the revivals in the well of the initial wavefunction are derived using Jacobi's elliptic theta function.
Green function and linear integrals of motion for a charged particle moving in electric field are discussed. Wigner function and tomogram of the ststionary states of the charge are obtained. Connection of quantum propagators for Schrodinger evolution equation, Moyal evolution equation and evolution equation in tomographic probability representation for charge moving in electric field is discussed.
We postulate a master equation, written in the language of creation and annihilation operators, as a candidate for unambiguous quantum mechanical description of unstable particles. We have found Kraus representation for the evolution driven by this master equation and study its properties. Both Schroedinger and Heisenberg picture of the system evolution are presented. We show that the resulting time evolution leads to exponential decay law. Moreover, we analyse mixing of particle flavours and we show that it can lead to flavour oscillation phenomenon.
We introduce a dynamical evolution operator for dealing with unstable physical process, such as scattering resonances, photon emission, decoherence and particle decay. With that aim, we use the formalism of rigged Hilbert space and represent the time evolution of quantum observables in the Heisenberg picture, in such a way that time evolution is non-unitary. This allows to describe observables that are initially non-commutative, but become commutative after time evolution. In other words, a non-abelian algebra of relevant observables becomes abelian when times goes to infinity. We finally pres…
One of the most extraordinary manifestations of the coupling of the optical field and matter is the emission of light by charged particles passing through a dielectric medium: the Vavilov-Cherenkov effect. In this article, it is theoretically predicted that a related phenomenon may be observed when neutral fast polarizable particles travel near a metal surface supporting surface plasmon polaritons. Rather dramatically, it is found that at some critical velocity, even if the initial optical field is vanishingly small, the system may become unstable and may start spontaneously emitting light suc…
We study the decay law for a moving unstable particle. The usual time-dilatation formula states that the decay width for an unstable state moving with a momentum $p$ and mass $M$ is $\tildeΓ_{p}=ΓM/\sqrt{p^{2}+M^{2}}$ with $Γ$ being the decay width in the rest frame. In agreement with previous studies, we show that in the context of QM as well as QFT this equation is \textit{not} correct provided that the quantum measurement is performed in a reference frame in which the unstable particle has momentum $p$ (note, a momentum eigenstate is \textit{not} a velocity eigenstate in QM). We then give, …
For over a decade several workers have argued for the existence of quantum deviations from the classical, Einstein dilation of the decay evolution of moving or Lorentz boosted unstable particles. While the general claim is correct, the discussions have been incomplete and, sometimes, misleading. The discussions have been of three kinds. Type 1 examines the time dependence of the survival probability for 3-momentum eigenstates of the unstable quanton (Khalfin). Type 2 does the same for velocity eigenstates, obtaining an outrageous result which then discredits velocity eigenstates (Shirokov / He…
We develop a framework to test the Equivalence Principle (EP) under conditions where the quantum aspects of nature cannot be neglected, specifically in the context of interference phenomena with unstable particles. We derive the nonrelativistic quantum equation that describes the evolution of the wavefunction of unstable particles under the assumption of the validity of the EP and when small deviations are assumed to occur. As an example, we study the propagation of unstable particles in a COW experiment, and we briefly discuss the experimental implications of our formalism.
We present the probability preserving description of the decaying particle within the framework of quantum mechanics of open systems taking into account the superselection rule prohibiting the superposition of the particle and vacuum. In our approach the evolution of the system is given by a family of completely positive trace preserving maps forming one-parameter dynamical semigroup. We give the Kraus representation for the general evolution of such systems which allows one to write the evolution for systems with two or more particles. Moreover, we show that the decay of the particle can be r…
Results presented in a recent paper "Which is the Quantum Decay Law of Relativistic particles?", arXiv: 1412.3346v2 [quant--ph]], are analyzed. We show that approximations used therein to derive the main final formula for the survival probability of finding a moving unstable particle to be undecayed at time $t$ force this particle to almost stop moving, that is that, in fact, the derived formula is approximately valid only for $γ\cong 1$, where $γ= 1/\sqrt{1-β^{2}}$ and $β= v/c$, or in other words, for the velocity $v \simeq 0$.
Late time properties of moving relativistic particles are studied. Within the proper relativistic treatment of the problem we find decay curves of such particles and we show that late time deviations of the survival probability of these particles from the exponential form of the decay law, that is the transition times region between exponential and non-expo\-nen\-tial form of the survival amplitude, occur much earlier than it follows from the classical standard approach boiled down to replace time $t$ by $t/γ_{L}$ (where $γ_{L}$ is the relativistic Lorentz factor) in the formula for the surviv…
Effective Hamiltonians governing the time evolution in a subspace of unstable states can be found using more or less accurate approximations. A convenient tool for deriving them is the evolution equation for a subspace of state space sometime called the Krolikowski-Rzewuski (KR) equation. KR equation results from the Schrödinger equation for the total system under considerations. We will discuss properties of approximate effective Hamiltonians derived using KR equation for $n$--particle, two particle and for one particle subspaces. In a general case these affective Hamiltonians depend on time …
