Interpolating between the gauge and Schrödinger pictures of quantum dynamics

Abstract

Although spatial locality is explicit in the Heisenberg picture of quantum dynamics, spatial locality is not explicit in the Schrödinger picture equations of motion. The gauge picture is a modification of Schrödinger’s picture such that locality is explicit in the equations of motion. In order to achieve this explicit locality, the gauge picture utilizes (1) a distinct wavefunction associated with each patch of space, and (2) time-dependent unitary connections to relate the Hilbert spaces associated with nearby patches. In this work, we show that by adding an additional spatially-local term to the gauge picture equations of motion, we can effectively interpolate between the gauge and Schrödinger pictures, such that when this additional term has a large coefficient, all of the gauge picture wavefunctions approach the Schrödginer picture wavefunction (and the connections approach the identity).