Related papers: Can One Detect Whether a Wave Function Has Collaps…
We are concerned with the problem of detecting with high probability whether a wave function has collapsed or not, in the following framework: A quantum system with a $d$-dimensional Hilbert space is initially in state $\psi$; with…
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…
Wavefunction collapse is a puzzling aspect of quantum mechanics. Designing a test to confirm the instantaneousness of collapse has turned out to be challenging, especially for collapse in configuration space. We propose a test using two…
A long-standing quantum-mechanical puzzle is whether the collapse of the wave function is a real physical process or simply an epiphenomenon. This puzzle lies at the heart of the measurement problem. One way to choose between the…
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 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…
Perhaps the quantum state represents information about reality, and not reality directly. Wave function collapse is then possibly no more mysterious than a Bayesian update of a probability distribution given new data. We consider models for…
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…
One of the main postulates of quantum mechanics is that measurements destroy quantum coherence (wave function collapse). Recently it was discovered that in a many-body system dilute local measurements still preserve some coherence across…
In this work, we propose a simple but effective experiment for probing the boundary in which a wave-function collapses. Using a quantum optics system interacting with a photomultiplier tube (PMT), one is able to determine the number of…
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…
Determinism is established in quantum mechanics by tracing the probabilities in the Born rules back to the absolute (overall) phase constants of the wave functions and recognizing these phase constants as pseudorandom numbers. The reduction…
The so-called quantum measurement problems are solved from a new perspective. One of the main observations is that the basic entities of our world are {\it particles}, elementary or composite. It follows that each elementary process, hence…
We propose Bell inequalities for discrete or continuous quantum systems which test the compatibility of quantum physics with an interpretation in terms of deterministic hidden-variable theories. The wave function collapse that occurs in a…
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…
Using complex quantum Hamilton-Jacobi formulation, a new kind of non-linear equations is proposed that have almost classical structure and extend the Schroedinger equation to describe the collapse of the wave function as a finite-time…
The possibility to test quantum measurement theories is discussed in the more phenomenological framework of the quantum nondemolition theory. A simple test of the hypothesis of the state vector collapse is proposed by looking for deviations…
Modifications of quantum mechanics are considered, in which the state vector of any system, large or small, undergoes a stochastic evolution. The general class of theories is described, in which the probability distribution of the state…
It is shown how to obtain state vectors associated with measurements on the separated subystems of an entangled state, revealing how a single wavefunction encodes a set of statistical measurement outcomes. The result explains why…
We show that including both the system and the apparatus in the quantum description of the measurement process, and using the concept of conditional probabilities, it is possible to deduce the statistical operator of the system after a…