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Reeh-Schlieder Meets Newton-Wigner

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Gordon N. Fleming
Gordon N. Fleming*
Affiliation:
Pennsylvania State University
*
†Send requests for reprints to the author, Physics Department, Pennsylvania State University, 325 Davey Lab, University Park, PA 16802; e-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

The Reeh-Schlieder theorem asserts the vacuum and certain other states to be spacelike superentangled relative to local quantum fields. This motivates an inquiry into the physical status of various concepts of localization. It is argued that a covariant generalization of Newton-Wigner localization is a physically illuminating concept. When analyzed in terms of nonlocally covariant quantum fields, creating and annihilating quanta in Newton-Wigner localized states, the vacuum is seen to not possess the spacelike superentanglement that the Reeh-Schlieder theorem displays relative to local fields, and to be locally empty as well as globally empty. Newton-Wigner localization is then shown to be physically interpretable in terms of a covariant generalization of the center of energy, the two localizations being identical if the system has no internal angular momentum. Finally, some of the counterintuitive features of Newton-Wigner localization are shown to have close analogues in classical special relativity.

Type
Philosophy of Physics and Chemistry
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 67 , Issue S3: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1998 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Sep., 2000 , 2000 , pp. S495 - S515
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

In the work leading to this paper I have had the benefit of critical discussions with Twareque Ali, Jeremy Butterfield, Rob Clifton, Jan Hilgevoord, John Norton, Simon Saunders, Paul Teller, and Andrew Wayne, none of whom are responsible for this paper's retention of my more extreme idiosyncratic views.

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