Quantum reference frame transformations as symmetries and the paradox of the third particle

TL;DR

This paper explores quantum reference frame transformations as symmetries, providing a new operational framework, analyzing their structure, and applying these insights to resolve the paradox of the third particle through relational observables and a generalized partial trace.

Contribution

It introduces a symmetry-based approach to quantum reference frame transformations, generalizes the relational trace, and applies these concepts to resolve the paradox of the third particle.

Findings

Quantum reference frame transformations are symmetries of physical systems.

A generalized relational trace helps resolve the paradox of the third particle.

Relational observables are key to understanding quantum symmetries and constraints.

Abstract

In a quantum world, reference frames are ultimately quantum systems too -- but what does it mean to "jump into the perspective of a quantum particle"? In this work, we show that quantum reference frame (QRF) transformations appear naturally as symmetries of simple physical systems. This allows us to rederive and generalize known QRF transformations within an alternative, operationally transparent framework, and to shed new light on their structure and interpretation. We give an explicit description of the observables that are measurable by agents constrained by such quantum symmetries, and apply our results to a puzzle known as the `paradox of the third particle'. We argue that it can be reduced to the question of how to relationally embed fewer into more particles, and give a thorough physical and algebraic analysis of this question. This leads us to a generalization of the partial trace (`relational trace') which arguably resolves the paradox, and it uncovers important structures of constraint quantization within a simple quantum information setting, such as relational observables which are key in this resolution. While we restrict our attention to finite Abelian groups for transparency and mathematical rigor, the intuitive physical appeal of our results makes us expect that they remain valid in more general situations.