A Completely Top-Down Hierarchical Structure in Quantum Mechanics
Abstract
Can a large system be fully characterized using its subsystems via inductive reasoning? Is it possible to completely reduce the behavior of a complex system to the behavior of its simplest "atoms"? In the following paper we answer these questions on the negative for a specific class of systems and measurements. We begin with simple two-particle example, where strong correlations arise between two apparently empty boxes. This leads to new surprising effects within atomic and electromagnetic systems. A general construction based on pre- and post-selected ensembles is then suggested, where the N-body correlation can be genuinely perceived as a global property, as long as one is limited to preforming a small set of measurements which we term "strictly local". We conclude that within time-symmetric quantum mechanics and under certain boundary conditions, high-order correlations can determine low-order ones, but not vice versa. Moreover, the latter seem to provide no information at all regarding the former. This supports a top-down structure in many-body quantum mechanics.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1709.07052,
title = {A Completely Top-Down Hierarchical Structure in Quantum Mechanics},
author = {Yakir Aharonov and Eliahu Cohen and Jeff Tollaksen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1709.07052},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
6 pages, 1 figure, comments are welcome