Quantizing time: Interacting clocks and systems

Abstract

This article generalizes the conditional probability interpretation of time in which time evolution is realized through entanglement between a clock and a system of interest. This formalism is based upon conditioning a solution to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation on a subsystem of the Universe, serving as a clock, being in a state corresponding to a time t. Doing so assigns a conditional state to the rest of the Universe |ψS(t)⟩, referred to as the system. We demonstrate that when the total Hamiltonian appearing in the Wheeler-DeWitt equation contains an interaction term coupling the clock and system, the conditional state |ψS(t)⟩ satisfies a time-nonlocal Schrödinger equation in which the system Hamiltonian is replaced with a self-adjoint integral operator. This time-nonlocal Schrödinger equation is solved perturbatively and three examples of clock-system interactions are examined. One example considered supposes that the clock and system interact via Newtonian gravity, which leads to the system's Hamiltonian developing corrections on the order of G/c4 and inversely proportional to the distance between the clock and system.