×

Time-of-arrival formalism for the relativistic particle. (English) Zbl 0936.81004

Summary: A suitable operator for the time-of-arrival at a detector is defined for the free relativistic particle in \((3+1)\) dimensions. For each detector position there exists a subspace of detected states in the Hilbert space of solutions to the Klein-Gordon equation. Orthogonality and completeness of the eigenfunctions of the time-of-arrival operator apply inside this subspace, opening up a standard probabilistic interpretation.

MSC:

81P15 Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations
81Q05 Closed and approximate solutions to the Schrödinger, Dirac, Klein-Gordon and other equations of quantum mechanics