Geometry and proper time of a relativistic quantum clock

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel framework integrating quantum degrees of freedom into the geometry of spacetime to analyze relativistic quantum clocks, predicting testable corrections to gravitational time dilation.

Contribution

It develops a modified Riemannian geometry framework that incorporates quantum states into the classical notion of proper time measurement.

Findings

Potentially testable quantum corrections to gravitational time dilation.

Quantum clocks follow geodesics in deformed spacetimes.

Corrections scale with the ratio of Compton wavelength to wave packet size.

Abstract

Classical clocks measure proper time along their worldline, and Riemannian geometry provides tools for predicting the time shown by clocks in both flat and curved spacetimes. Common approaches to time in quantum systems, based for instance on wave functions or density matrices, tend to obscure this geometric property at the quantum level. Here, a new framework is demonstrated for perturbing the classical path-length functional to include quantum degrees of freedom within a modified Riemannian geometry. In this framework, a quantum clock travels on geodesics of a family of spacetimes deformed by parameters specifying the clock's quantum state. Detailed derivations provide potentially testable corrections to gravitational time-dilation in Schwarzschild spacetime that scale with the ratio of the clock's Compton wavelength to its wave packet's spatial extent.