Enhancement of superluminal weak values under Lorentz boost (1903.10029v2)

Abstract: We study the local group velocity defined as the weak value of the velocity operator in the (1+1) dimensional Klein-Gordon as well as Dirac theory. It was shown by Berry [ J. Phys. A 45, 185308 (2012)] that when the pre- and post-selected states for evaluating the weak value are chosen at random from an ensemble of available states, the local group velocity has a universal probability distribution which can have both subluminal and superluminal components. In this work, we numerically explore the role of Lorentz boost and its impact on the superluminal fraction of the total probability distribution. We show that the dependence (enhancement) of the superluminal fraction on Lorentz boost of the total probability distribution differs both qualitatively and quantitatively for the Klein-Gordon waves and Dirac waves. For the Klein-Gordan waves, the asymmetry in the distribution of group velocities around the zero velocity point in the laboratory frame is entirely responsible for the observation of relative enhancement in the boosted frame. On the other hand, for the Dirac waves, we observe an enhancement irrespective of whether the laboratory frame velocity distribution is symmetric or not.