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Topics in quantum physics: Schrodinger's cat problem - time measurement accuracies in quantum mechanics

University of British Columbia

In this thesis I address two different topics in quantum theory. The first one is the long discussed Schrodinger's cat problem, and the issues related to having a macroscopic superposition state. I show that the quantum theory provides full explanation to the problem. In the second part, I discuss the time measurement related issues in quantum mechanics. Since there does not exist any time operator in quantum mechanics generally, time is not directly measurable. Therefore we should devise other methods to register time. We study different time-energy relations and will find that accurate clocks have high energy uncertainties. If we use accurate clocks in quantum systems to observe their time evolutions, their high energy uncertainties interfere with system's normal evolution and slows it down. I also provide a formal proof to a previously suggested limiting accuracy relation on the measurements of the time-of-arrival experiments.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2007-11-30

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/204

Physics

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/