Quantum time-of-flight measurements: kick clock versus continuous clock

Abstract

The measurement of time durations or instants of ocurrence of events has been frequently modelled ``operationally'' by coupling the system of interest to a ``clock''. According to several of these models the operational approach is limited at low energies because the perturbation of the clock does not allow to reproduce accurately the corresponding ideal time quantity, defined for the system in isolation. We show that, for a time-of-flight measurement model that can be set to measure dwell or arrival times, these limitations may be overcome by extending the range of energies where the clock works properly using pulsed couplings rather than continuous ones.