Related papers: Does a measurement really collapse the wave functi…
We describe an experimental test of whether particle decay causes wave function collapse. The test uses interference between two well separated, but coherent, sources of vector mesons. The short-lived mesons decay before their wave…
We explain the collapse of the wavefunction with the notion that, in a measurement, the system observed nucleates a first order phase transition in the measuring device. The possible final states differ by the values of macroscopic…
Almost a century after the development of quantum mechanics, we still do not have a consensus on the process of collapse of wavefunctions. Some theories require the intervention of a conscious observer while some see it as a stochastic…
The problem of measurement in quantum mechanics is that the quantum particle in the course of evolution, as described by the linear Schrodinger equation, exists in all of its possible states, but in measuring, the particle is always…
We analyse the wave function collapse as seem by two distinct observers (with identical detectors) in relative motion. Imposing that the measurement process demands information transfer from the system to the detectors, we note that…
We apply the formalism of quantum measurement theory to the idealized measurement of the position of a particle with an optical interferometer, finding that the backaction of counting entangled photons systematically collapses the…
We show that long standing debates on the collapse and the role of the observer in quantum mechanics can be resolved experimentally via a nondistructive continuous monitoring of a single quantum system. An example of such a system, coupled…
Consider a quantum system prepared in state $\psi$, a unit vector in a $d$-dimensional Hilbert space. Let $b_1,...,b_d$ be an orthonormal basis and suppose that, with some probability $0<p<1$, $\psi$ ``collapses,'' i.e., gets replaced by…
A reasonable explanation of the confounding wave-particle duality of matter is presented in terms of the reality of the wave nature of a particle. In this view a quantum particle is an objectively real wave packet consisting of irregular…
When a quantum system is described by a wave function consisting in a couple of wave-packets, each wave packet traveling on a separate path, a commonly asked question is why at a given time only one of the wave packets is able to trigger a…
When a quantum object -- a particle as we call it in a non-rigorous way -- is described by a multi-branched wave- function, with the corresponding wave-packets occupying separated regions of the time-space, a frequently asked question is…
The undoing of quantum measurements is discussed in the broader context of irreversibility in physics. We give explicit examples of how a wavefunction can be uncollapsed in two solid-state experimental set-ups. Wavefunction uncollapse shows…
The specific advance of this work is to propose a mechanism by which superpositions collapse during measurement of the separated subsystems of entangled quantum states. It is shown how the phase that locks together entangled states plays a…
This paper proposes an experiment designed to distinguish between competing interpretations of quantum mechanics: those that involve wave function collapse and those that assume purely unitary evolution. The experiment tests whether an…
The quantum field of a single particle is expressed as the sum of the particle's ordinary wave function and the vacuum fluctuations. An exact quantum-field calculation shows that the squared amplitude of this field sums, at any time, to a…
The 'collapse' of the wave function in a general measuring process is analyzed by a pure quantum mechanical (QM) approach. The problem of the delayed choice and Welcher-Weg (WW) experiments is analyzed for Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometer.…
We formulate a model of a quantum particle continuously monitored by detectors measuring simultaneously its position and momentum. We implement the postulate of wavefunction collapse by assuming that upon detection the particle is found in…
The quantum object is in general considered as displaying both wave and particle nature. By particle is understood an item localized in a very small volume of the space, and which cannot be simultaneously in two disjoint regions of the…
In this letter, we have considered an electron in a coupled quantum dot system interacting with a detector represented by a point contact. We present a dynamical model for wave function collapse in the strong coupling to the detector limit.…
We define a measuring device (detector) of the coordinate of quantum particle as an absorbing wall that cuts off the particle's wave function. The wave function in the presence of such detector vanishes on the detector. The trace the…