On a possible quantum contribution to the red shift

We consider an effect generated by the nonexponential behavior of the survival amplitude of an unstable state in the long time region: In 1957 Khalfin proved that this amplitude tends to zero as $t$ goes to the infinity more slowly than any exponential function of $t$. This effect can be described in terms of time-dependent decay rate $\gamma(t)$ and then the Khalfin result means that this $\gamma(t)$ is not a constant for long times but that it tends to zero as $t$ goes to the infinity. It appears that a similar conclusion can be drawn for the energy of the unstable state for a large class of models of unstable particles: This energy should be much smaller for suitably long times $t$ than the energy of this state for $t$ of the order of the lifetime of the considered state. Within a given model we show that the energy corrections in the long ($t \to \infty$) and relatively short (lifetime of the state) time regions, are different. It is shown that these corrections decrease to ${\cal E} = {\cal E}_{min} < {\cal E}_{\phi}$ as $t \to \infty$, where ${\cal E}_{\phi}$ is the energy of the system in the state $|\phi>$ measured at times $t \sim \tau_{\phi}= \frac{\hbar}{\gamma}$. This is a purely quantum mechanical effect. It is hypothesized that there is a possibility to detect this effect by analyzing the spectra of distant astrophysical objects. The above property of unstable states may influence the measured values of astrophysical and cosmological parameters.

K. Urbanowski · 2008