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I've read several threads over the past several days talking about how photons don't have wavefunctions in the same way as massive particles do because they don't have non-relativistic limits. If I understood correctly, that's because the usual position operator introduced in introductory QM courses really only applies to non-relativistic theories. The Newton-Wigner operators kept being mentioned as the closest QFT analog to the position operator from non-relativistic QM, so I've been trying to find information on them, but the relevant Wikipedia page is very sparse and vague and everything else I found was very long and technical. All I really want to know is:

  1. What's the actual definition of the Newton-Wigner operators?

  2. How does it differ from the definition of the position operator from non-relativistic QM?

From what little the Wikipedia article did say, I know the Newton-Wigner operators aren't Lorentz covariant, which, if I understand correctly, means they're reference-framed dependent w.r.t. the Lorentz transform. But is that the only difference between them and analogous operator from non-relativistic QM? If so, then why does position in particular often get singled out as being different in relativistic and non-relativistic QM and QFT, when other properties, such as energy and momentum, are also reference frame dependent?

Qmechanic
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2 Answers2

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First of all I suggest to have a look at my recent paper on this and related subjects where a detailed and technical review introduction takes place, for the massive KG particle ["On the Relativistic Spatial Localization for massive real scalar Klein-Gordon quantum particle][1]".

Given an elementary particle (referring to Wigner's definition), the Newton-Wigner observable is the unique projector-valued measure (i.e. triple of commuting self-adjoint operator) labelled by measurable sets in the rest 3-space of a Minkowskian reference frame, that is co-variant with respect to the group of spatial isometries of that Euclidean space.

Actually, this is true by assuming some further technical hypotheses on the regularity of the representation and it has been established by Wightman exploiting Mackey's results on imprimitivity systems.

The above-mentioned group of isometries of the spatial rest space is generated, in the Hilbert space of the particle, by momenta and angular momenta as usual. These observables are uniquely determined by the irreducible unitary representation of Poincaré group which defines the considered elementary particle in Wigner sense.

So, if one assumes that position is described by a (triple of commuting) self adjoint operator(s), there is only one way to define it, under the assumption of natural physical requirements.

Let $L^2(\mathbb{R}^3, d\mu)$ be the Hilbert space of a particle, for simplicity Klein-Gordon and massive. Above $d\mu(p)$ is the Lorentz invariant measure in momentum space. The Newton-Wigner position operator along the spatial k-th direction has this expression

$$(X^k\psi)(p) = i \left[\left(\frac{\partial}{\partial p^k} - \frac{p^k}{2p^2_0}\right)\psi\right](p)\:.$$ (Above, $\psi$ stays in the Schwartz space when viewed on the mass shell. However, there is only one selfadjoint extension of that operator.)
You see that at large mass, i.e., small 3-momenta the added term disappears and the covariant measure tends to the non relativistic one (up to a factor) $d^3p$. This proves that, in the non-relativistic limit we find the standard position operator for massive particles. (See also my old answer pointed out by @Gold in the comment under your post, but notice that there I employ the non-covariant measure $d^3p$ form scratch: I use a different but equivalent representation of the Hilbert space.)

The presence of spin makes even more complex the expression above.

In position representation (where the space is the joint spectrum of the three position operators), the expression $X^k$ is the standard one, but the Lorentz group acts non-locally. When representing in spacetime a completely localized state (a Dirac delta in position representation) one sees a wave spatially concentrated around a point in a region comparable with the Compton length of the particle.

Unfortunately the NW notion of position is plagued by a number of issues accumulated over the years. These are of two types.

  1. Without considering the problem of the post-measurment state (after a position measurement). The NW notion of position gives rise to a supreluminal propagation of probability, as established by the Hegerfeldt theorem. In turn, this phenomenon implies a direct violation of (macroscopic) causality.

  2. Considering also the post-measurment state. Here things become much more complicated. As the spectrum of the position operators is continuous, the standard L"uders projection postulate is untenable (Ozawa theorem) and one should choose a procedure leading to the post-measurment state in terms of a quantum operation (Kraus operators). Apparently natural choices are ruled out by the so called Malament theorem and more recent improvements which prove, once again, that causality violation takes place also along this route.

On the other hand, the expectation value of the Newton Wigner position operator enjoys quite nice properties. First of all, the "center of mass" of a free wavepacket describes a timelike worldline as expected. The Newton Wigner operators are Poincaré-covariant, but in a precise way as is well know (Wikipedia seems to be wrong on that).

The various issues arising from the analysis of NW notion of position, in my view, are just a symptom of the inadequacy of the description of observables only in terms of self-adjoint operators in QM (especially relativistic) and of the naivety of the projection postulate. In particular, except for a few cases, the projection postulate is physically untenable. The general way to formalize the quantum world is in terms of quantum operations, positive-operator valued measures, and all that.

[1]: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.02133, Lett. Math. Phys. 113, 66 (2023). DOI:10.1007/s11005-023-01689-5

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First, the Newton-Wigner "operators" are actually not quantum at all, but classically-rooted. What's referred to as "operators" are just quantized version of the classical quantities. Historically, however, the ideas first cropped up in the setting of quantum theory - thus the mistaken attribution of them being "quantum" in essence and the continual mistaken attribution of them being referred to as "operators", rather than as quantized forms of classical quantities.

They may be obtained by solving the equations for the angular momentum (or rotation generator) $$ and boost generator $$ for the internal angular momentum $$ and position $$. The position vector $$ is what you're asking for.

The equations apply to all sub-light systems in Relativity and to all non-zero mass systems in non-relativistic theory: $$ = × + ,\quad = M - t + α\frac{×}{m+M}.$$ They are connected to the Pauli-Lubanski scalar $W_0 = ·$ and 3-vector $ = M + ×$. In Relativity, they together form the Pauli-Lubanski 4-vector $\left(W_0, \right)$. Explicitly: $$W_0 = ·,\quad = M + α\frac{×(×)}{m+M}.$$

Together, they satisfy the identities: $$M^2 - α ||^2 = m^2,\quad ||^2 - α {W_0}^2 = m^2 ||^2.$$ The $\left(m,||^2\right)$ eigenvalues define the representation family, when quantized.

For the non-relativistic version $α = 0$ and $M = m$, with $m$ being the mass. For the relativistic version $α = 1/c^2 > 0$, with $m$ being the rest mass and $M = m\sqrt{1 + α||^2/m^2}$ the "relativistic" or "moving" mass. In the contemporary literature, $M$ is normally written as the "total" energy $E$, via the relation $E = M c^2$. However, $E$ has no non-relativistic limit, i.e. as $c → ∞$, so it's actually more natural to write it in terms of $M$, instead.

Finally, $$ is the momentum 3-vector. In Relativity, you can treat $(,M)$ as the components of the momentum 4-vector, just as well as you could $(E,)$. It's the same 4-vector, apart from the scaling of the components.

Solving for $$ and $$, one gets: $$ = \frac{}{m} - α\frac{}{m}\frac{W_0}{m+M},\quad = \frac{}{M} + \frac{}{M} t - α \frac{×}{mM(m+M)}. $$

To quantize this, and to make the representation applicable uniformly, the operator forms should be written as $\hat{} = -i ħ ∇$ and $\hat{M} = m + α i ħ ∂/∂t$. For $E$, you'd thus write $\hat{E} = m c^2 + i ħ ∂/∂t$, instead of $\hat{M} = α i ħ ∂/∂t$ and $\hat{E} = i ħ ∂/∂t$. The replacement of the latter set by the former set is the Foldy-Wouthuysen transform in disguise. With the altered form of $\hat{M}$, you can pass directly over to the non-relativistic limit by taking $α = 0$. With the unaltered forms, you end up getting representations for $\hat{M} = 0 = m$.

In the quantized form, the operator-ordering issue arises with $(,M)$, since $[\hat{},\hat{M}] = i ħ α \hat{}$. So, effectively the ordering ambiguity in $\hat{}/\hat{M}$ gives you an undetermined multiple of $\hat{}$ - alongside the arbitrary $t$ multiple for $\hat{}/\hat{M}$ which positions you at an undetermined point on a worldline with a velocity $\hat{} = \hat{}/\hat{M}$. In Weyl ordering, one writes $\widehat{/M} = ½\left(\hat{}\hat{M}^{-1} + \hat{M}^{-1}\hat{}\right)$.

For the operator form, $(\hat{}, \hat{M}, \hat{})$ are all mutually commuting, and $(m,t)$ are c-numbers, so there is no operator-ordering ambiguity with the remainder of the expression, and you could just freely intermix everything.

The operator $\hat{}$ comes from whatever spin-representation you have. The operators $\hat{W_0}$ and $\hat{}$ come from the expression of the Pauli-Lubanski components $\left(W_0, \right)$ in terms of $(,M,)$ and $(m,α)$, the former set being converted to $(\hat{},\hat{M},\hat{})$.

So, the resulting expression is: $$\hat{} = \frac12\left(\hat{}\frac1{\hat{M}} +\frac1{\hat{M}}\hat{}\right) + \frac{\hat{}}{\hat{M}} t - α \frac{\hat{}×\hat{}}{m\hat{M}(m+\hat{M})}. $$

The contrast between the relativistic and non-relativistic versions has been made transparent all throughout by keeping the $α$ deformation parameter in. The relativistic versions are the deformation of the non-relativistic versions by $α = 0 → α = 1/c^2 > 0$.

As far as photons go: you can set up a position operator for them. However, it has a singularity much like the singularity that occurs in spherical coordinates. So, you need different operator representations for different parts of its phase space. Constructing the photon position operator.

The non-relativistic limits of both the photon and (a certain subclass of) the tachyon would be a similar subclass of the mass-zero representations of the Bargmann group (which is the central extension of the Galilei group). They don't have a name, so I've called them "synchrons". Like the photon, the sub-family is "helical": the helicity is invariant. All the massless particles in the Standard Model and all the ones studied for scalar and gauge fields in quantum field theory are helical. That's not generally the case for the "luxon" Wigner family (nor for the "synchron" family).

The synchrons have the property that they convey impulse instantaneously across space at an instant. That's what used to be called a "line of force", except that it acts instantaneously (so it has a "time of occurrence" operator). Some of these features are inherited by tachyons and pass over to them, instead of to luxons. In particular, instead of having a positive mass-squared invariant $m^2 = M^2 - α ||^2 > 0$, a tachyon has a positive impulse-squared invariant $||^2 = ||^2 - M^2 c^2 > 0$ and they convey impulses instantaneously (relative to at least one frame of reference) across space. They're more akin to instantaneous "lines of force" than to particles.

NinjaDarth
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