Forward-Time Equivalent of a "Retrocausal" Diffusion Hidden Variable Model for Quantum Mechanics
Quantum Physics
2025-12-05 v2
Abstract
A recently proposed stochastic hidden variable model for quantum mechanics has been claimed to involve "retrocausality" due to the appearance of equations of motion with future-time boundary conditions. We formulate an equivalent system of forward-time equations of motion that gives rise to the same trajectories as solutions, but involves only initial-time boundary conditions. The forward-time dynamics involves a guidance term for the dynamical variables, determined by the phase-space distribution corresponding to a quantum wavefunction. We show, however, that this particular guidance term can be recovered as the mean-field limit of averaged pairwise interactions among an ensemble of finitely many particles.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2507.13593,
title = {Forward-Time Equivalent of a "Retrocausal" Diffusion Hidden Variable Model for Quantum Mechanics},
author = {William S. DeWitt and Benjamin H. Feintzeig},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.13593},
year = {2025}
}