Quantum reference frame transformations as symmetries and the paradox of the third particle

In a quantum world, reference frames are ultimately quantum systems too – but what does it mean to "jump into the perspective of a quantum particle"? In this work, we show that quantum reference frame (QRF) transformations appear naturally as symmetries of simple physical systems. This allows us to rederive and generalize known QRF transformations within an alternative, operationally transparent framework, and to shed new light on their structure and interpretation. We give an explicit description of the observables that are measurable by agents constrained by such quantum symmetries, and apply our results to a puzzle known as the `paradox of the third particle'. We argue that it can be reduced to the question of how to relationally embed fewer into more particles, and give a thorough physical and algebraic analysis of this question. This leads us to a generalization of the partial trace (`relational trace') which arguably resolves the paradox, and it uncovers important structures of constraint quantization within a simple quantum information setting, such as relational observables which are key in this resolution. While we restrict our attention to finite Abelian groups for transparency and mathematical rigor, the intuitive physical appeal of our results makes us expect that they remain valid in more general situations.

Formal self duality

We study the notion of formal self duality in finite abelian groups. Formal duality in finite abelian groups has been proposed by Cohn, Kumar, Reiher and Schürmann. In this paper we give a precise definition of formally self dual sets and discuss results from the literature in this perspective. Also, we discuss the connection to formally dual codes. We prove that formally self dual sets can be reduced to primitive formally self dual sets similar to a previously known result on general formally dual sets. Furthermore, we describe several properties of formally self dual sets. Also, some new examples of formally self dual sets are presented within this paper. Lastly, we study formally self dual sets of the form $\{(x,F(x)) \ : \ x\in {\mathbb {F}}_{2^{n}}\}$ { ( x , F ( x ) ) : x ∈ F 2 n } where F is a vectorial Boolean function mapping ${\mathbb {F}}_{2^{n}}$ F 2 n to ${\mathbb {F}}_{2^{n}}$ F 2 n .

On efficient computation of sums of characters on the basis of A. G. Postnikov methods

An efficient p-adic method and the structure of an algorithm for computing the sums of characters of finite abelian groups are presented. The method and algorithm are based on the A.G. Postnikov summation method of characters modulo a prime power and its developments. A brief survey of the theory of characters of finite abelian groups, p-adic arithmetic and analysis is presented. Questions of the efficiency of p-adic methods are discussed. Moreover, we present results of computation of other types of sums of characters (Kloosterman sums), which are connecting with Artin-Schreier coverings over prime finite fields. The corresponding method and algorithm are based on the development of another method by A.G. Postnikov. Examples of computation of sums of characters are given.