English

Wavefunction collapse driven by non-Hermitian disturbance

Quantum Physics 2024-04-26 v1 Other Condensed Matter

Abstract

In the context of the measurement problem, we propose to model the interaction between a quantum particle and an "apparatus" through a non-Hermitian Hamiltonian term. We simulate the time evolution of a normalized quantum state split into two spin components (via a Stern-Gerlach experiment) and that undergoes a wave-function collapse driven by a non-Hermitian Hatano-Nelson Hamiltonian. We further analyze how the strength and other parameters of the non-Hermitian perturbation influence the time-to-collapse of the wave function obtained under a Schr\"{o}dinger-type evolution. We finally discuss a thought experiment where manipulation of the apparatus could challenge standard quantum mechanics predictions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.16445,
  title  = {Wavefunction collapse driven by non-Hermitian disturbance},
  author = {Jorge Martinez Romeral and Luis E. F. Foa Torres and Stephan Roche},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.16445},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

5 pages, 4 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T16:05:59.856Z