Arrival Time -- Classical Parameter or Quantum Operator?

Abstract

The question of how to interpret and compute arrival-time distributions in quantum mechanics remains unsettled, reflecting the longstanding tension between treating time as a quantum observable or as a classical parameter. Most previous studies have focused on the single-particle case in the far-field regime, where both approaches yield very similar arrival-time distributions and a semi-classical analysis typically suffices. Recent advances in atom-optics technologies now make it possible to experimentally investigate arrival-time distributions for entangled multi-particle systems in the near-field regime, where a deeper analysis beyond semi-classical approximations is required. Even in the far-field regime, due to quantum non-locality, the semi-classical approximation cannot generally hold in multi-particle systems. Therefore, in this work, two fundamental approaches to the arrival-time problem -- namely, the time-parameter and time-operator approaches -- are extended to multi-particle systems. Using these extensions, we propose a feasible two-particle arrival-time experiment and numerically evaluate the corresponding joint distributions. Our results reveal regimes in which the two approaches yield inequivalent predictions, highlighting conditions under which experiments could shed new light on distinguishing between competing accounts of time in quantum mechanics. Our findings also provide important insights for the development of quantum technologies that use entanglement in the time domain, including non-local temporal interferometry, temporal ghost imaging, and temporal state tomography in multi-particle systems.