Detecting screens modeled by Schrödinger operators that generate $C_0$ contraction semigroups

Abstract

Consider a non-relativistic quantum particle with wave function $ψ$ in a bounded $C^2$ region $Ω\subset \mathbb{R}^n$, and suppose detectors are placed along the boundary $\partial Ω$. Assume the detection process is irreversible, its mechanism is time independent and also hard, i.e., detections occur only along the boundary $\partial Ω$. Under these conditions Tumulka informally argued that the dynamics of $ψ$ must be governed by a $C_0$ contraction semigroup that weakly solves the Schrödinger equation and proposed modeling the detector by a time-independent local absorbing boundary condition at $\partial Ω$. In this paper, we apply the newly discovered theory of boundary quadruples to parameterize all $C_0$ contraction semigroups whose generators extend the Schrödinger Hamiltonian, and prove a variant of Tumulka's claim: all such evolutions are generated by the placement of a linear absorbing boundary condition on $ψ$ along $\partial Ω$. We combine this result with the work of Werner to show that each $C_0$ contraction semigroup naturally admits a Born rule for the time of detection along $\partial Ω$, and we prove that a detection will almost surely occur in finite time if detectors have been placed everywhere along $\partial Ω$.