Information-theoretic derivation of energy, speed bounds, and quantum theory

Abstract

We provide a derivation of quantum theory in which the existence of an energy observable that generates the reversible dynamics follows directly from information-theoretic principles. Our first principle is that every reversible dynamics is implementable through a collision model, i.e. a sequence of fast collisions with an array of identically prepared systems. Combined with four additional principles, known as causality, classical decomposability, purity preservation, and strong symmetry, the collision model pins down the quantum framework, sets up a one-to-one correspondence between energy observables and generators of the dynamics, and provides an information-theoretic derivation of the Mandelstam-Tamm bound on the speed of quantum evolutions.