Formulation of causality-preserving quantum time of arrival theory

Abstract

We revisit the quantum correction to the classical time of arrival to address the unphysical instantaneous arrival in the limit of zero initial momentum. In this study, we show that the vanishing of arrival time is due to the contamination of the causality-violating component of the initial wave packet. Motivated by this observation, we propose to update the temporal collapse mechanism in Galapon (2009) [18] to incorporate the removal of causality-violating spectra of the arrival time operator. We found that the quantum correction to the classical arrival time is still observed. Thus, our analysis validates that the correction is an inherent consequence of quantizing a time observable and is not just some mathematical artifact of the theory. We also discuss the possible application of the theory in describing point interactions in particle physics and provide a possible explanation to the observed neutron's lifetime anomaly.