Hi all,

next week Anne-Catherine de la Hamette will present the results of her semester project on "Quantum reference frames from quantum communication". Here's the abstract of the talk:

In classical mechanics and special relativity, reference frames are treated as abstract, ideal entities to which no physical state is assigned. In practice however, a reference frame is always associated with a real physical system in a well-defined physical state. If one assumes quantum theory to be the underlying universal theory that describes our physical world, any reference frame needs to be treated as a quantum system itself. In this case, we speak of quantum reference frames. In this work, we show how a quantum reference frame can be operationally constructed from the communication relations of agents. A set of test agents, each equipped with a local laboratory and the ability to communicate, is spread out in space and attempts to establish their signalling relations. Based on these relations, one can infer an operational notion of distance in space and construct a reference frame relative to which one can encode the position and momentum of physical objects.

Best,

-joe