Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity

We show that the precision of an angular measurement or rotation (e.g., on the orientation of a qubit or spin state) is limited by fundamental constraints arising from quantum mechanics and general relativity (gravitational collapse). The limiting precision is r−1 in Planck units, where r is the phy...

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Auteurs principaux:	Xavier Calmet, Stephen D.H. Hsu
Format:	article
Langue:	EN
Publié:	Elsevier 2021
Sujets:	Physics QC1-999
Accès en ligne:	https://doaj.org/article/080caa68abd447d6aeec4a712b7e2113
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:080caa68abd447d6aeec4a712b7e21132021-12-04T04:32:38ZFundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity0370-269310.1016/j.physletb.2021.136763https://doaj.org/article/080caa68abd447d6aeec4a712b7e21132021-12-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0370269321007036https://doaj.org/toc/0370-2693We show that the precision of an angular measurement or rotation (e.g., on the orientation of a qubit or spin state) is limited by fundamental constraints arising from quantum mechanics and general relativity (gravitational collapse). The limiting precision is r−1 in Planck units, where r is the physical extent of the (possibly macroscopic) device used to manipulate the spin state. This fundamental limitation means that spin states S1 and S2 cannot be experimentally distinguished from each other if they differ by a sufficiently small rotation. Experiments cannot exclude the possibility that the space of quantum state vectors (i.e., Hilbert space) is fundamentally discrete, rather than continuous. We discuss the implications for finitism: does physics require infinity or a continuum?Xavier CalmetStephen D.H. HsuElsevierarticlePhysicsQC1-999ENPhysics Letters B, Vol 823, Iss , Pp 136763- (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Physics QC1-999
spellingShingle	Physics QC1-999 Xavier Calmet Stephen D.H. Hsu Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity
description	We show that the precision of an angular measurement or rotation (e.g., on the orientation of a qubit or spin state) is limited by fundamental constraints arising from quantum mechanics and general relativity (gravitational collapse). The limiting precision is r−1 in Planck units, where r is the physical extent of the (possibly macroscopic) device used to manipulate the spin state. This fundamental limitation means that spin states S1 and S2 cannot be experimentally distinguished from each other if they differ by a sufficiently small rotation. Experiments cannot exclude the possibility that the space of quantum state vectors (i.e., Hilbert space) is fundamentally discrete, rather than continuous. We discuss the implications for finitism: does physics require infinity or a continuum?
format	article
author	Xavier Calmet Stephen D.H. Hsu
author_facet	Xavier Calmet Stephen D.H. Hsu
author_sort	Xavier Calmet
title	Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity
title_short	Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity
title_full	Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity
title_fullStr	Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity
title_full_unstemmed	Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity
title_sort	fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity
publisher	Elsevier
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/080caa68abd447d6aeec4a712b7e2113
work_keys_str_mv	AT xaviercalmet fundamentallimitonangularmeasurementsandrotationsfromquantummechanicsandgeneralrelativity AT stephendhhsu fundamentallimitonangularmeasurementsandrotationsfromquantummechanicsandgeneralrelativity
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Fundamental limit on angular measurements and rotations from quantum mechanics and general relativity

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