论文标题
有原子年龄吗？
Do Atoms Age?
论文作者
论文摘要
时间演化通常将量子状态与环境自由度纠缠。熵的增加会改变该量子系统的特性，从而导致“衰老”。有趣的是，询问这种熟悉的属性是否也适用于简单的单个粒子量子系统，例如放射性粒子的衰减。我们在离子时钟设置中提出了这种衰老的测试，在该测试中，我们探究了对含有放射性核的离子的电子状态能量的时间变化。标准量子力学中没有这种影响，因此该测试是违反量子力学的有效零测试。作为原则的证明，我们表明这些影响存在于量子力学的因果非线性修饰中。
Time evolution generically entangles a quantum state with environmental degrees of freedom. The resulting increase in entropy changes the properties of that quantum system leading to "aging". It is interesting to ask if this familiar property also applies to simple, single particle quantum systems such as the decay of a radioactive particle. We propose a test of such aging in an ion clock setup where we probe for temporal changes to the energies of the electronic state of an ion containing a radioactive nucleus. Such effects are absent in standard quantum mechanics and this test is thus a potent null test for violations of quantum mechanics. As a proof of principle, we show that these effects exist in causal non-linear modifications of quantum mechanics.
