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Related papers: On the reality of the quantum state

200 papers

The notion of quantum information related to the two different perspectives of the global and local states is examined. There is circularity in the definition of quantum information because we can speak only of the information of systems…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Subhash Kak

Quantum mechanics is a cornerstone of our current understanding of nature and extremely successful in describing physics covering a huge range of scales. However, its interpretation remains controversial since the early days of quantum…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2025-05-16 Zeng-Bing Chen

I explore whether it is possible to make sense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality by taking the proper subject of physics to be correlation and only correlation, and by separating the problem of understanding the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-10-31 N. David Mermin

Every quantum state can be represented as a probability distribution over the outcomes of an informationally complete measurement. But not all probability distributions correspond to quantum states. Quantum state space may thus be thought…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2011-02-14 D. M. Appleby , Asa Ericsson , Christopher A. Fuchs

Ryff's Comment raises the question of the meaning of the quantum state. We argue that the quantum state is just the representative of information available to a given observer. Then Ryff's interpretation of one of our experiments and our…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Thomas Jennewein , Gregor Weihs , Jian-Wei Pan , Anton Zeilinger

Quantum theory provides an extremely accurate description of fundamental processes in physics. It thus seems likely that the theory is applicable beyond the, mostly microscopic, domain in which it has been tested experimentally. Here we…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-10-08 Daniela Frauchiger , Renato Renner

Applications of quantum mechanics have led to many successful predictions and explanations of puzzling phenomena, and we now apply quantum mechanics to gain, process, and communicate information in novel ways. We can understand quantum…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2026-04-03 Richard Healey

Quantum information refers to the distinctive information-processing properties of quantum systems, which arise when information is stored in or retrieved from nonorthogonal quantum states. More information is required to prepare an…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-05-23 Carlton M. Caves , Christopher A. Fuchs

A controversy that has arisen many times over in disparate contexts is whether quantum coherences between eigenstates of certain quantities are fact or fiction. We present a pedagogical introduction to the debate in the form of a…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-11-18 Stephen D. Bartlett , Terry Rudolph , Robert W. Spekkens

A formulation of quantum mechanics, which begins by postulating assertions for individual physical systems, is given. The statistical predictions of quantum mechanics for infinite ensembles are then derived from its assertions for…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2019-07-08 J. B. Hartle

Quantum theory is a well-defined local theory with a clear interpretation. No "measurement problem" or any other foundational matters are waiting to be settled.

Quantum Physics · Physics 2013-11-22 Berthold-Georg Englert

The predictions that quantum theory makes about the outcomes of measurements are generally probabilistic. This has raised the question whether quantum theory can be considered complete, or whether there could exist alternative theories that…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-04-13 Roger Colbeck , Renato Renner

The status of the quantum state is perhaps the most controversial issue in the foundations of quantum theory. Is it an epistemic state (state of knowledge) or an ontic state (state of reality)? In realist models of quantum theory, the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-04-30 M. S. Leifer

A century on from the development of quantum theory, the interpretation of a quantum state is still discussed. If a physicist claims to have produced a system with a particular wave function, does this represent directly a physical wave of…

In the conventional formulation of quantum mechanics, the initial description is given only for the physical system under study. It factors out the state for the experimenter. We argue that such description is incomplete and can lead to…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2018-10-30 Hitoshi Inamori

Does information play a significant role in the foundations of physics? Information is the abstraction that allows us to refer to the states of systems when we choose to ignore the systems themselves. This is only possible in very…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2014-03-05 Lluis Masanes , Markus P. Mueller , Remigiusz Augusiak , David Perez-Garcia

The uncertainty relation is a distinctive characteristic of quantum theory. The uncertainty is essentially rooted in quantum states. In this work we regard the uncertainty as an intrinsic property of quantum state and characterize it…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-05-31 Ming-Jing Zhao , Yuanhong Tao

Recently, it has been argued that quantum mechanics is complete, and that quantum states vectors are necessarily in one-to-one correspondence with the elements of reality, under the assumptions that quantum theory is correct and that…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2013-06-24 GianCarlo Ghirardi , Raffaele Romano

The only evidence we have for a discrete reality comes from quantum measurements; without invoking these measurements, quantum theory describes continuous entities. This seeming contradiction can be resolved via analysis that treats…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2011-06-08 Ken Wharton

What is the quantum state of the universe? That is the central question of quantum cosmology. This essay describes the place of that quantum state in a final theory governing the regularities exhibited universally by all physical systems in…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2020-04-29 James B. Hartle