Related papers: The Measurement Problem: Decoherence and Convivial…
The problem investigated in this paper is einselection, i. e. the selection of mutually exclusive quantum states with definite probabilities through decoherence. Its study is based on a theory of decoherence resulting from the projection…
We study a class of quantum measurement models. A microscopic object is entangled with a macroscopic pointer such that a distinct pointer position is tied to each eigenvalue of the measured object observable. Those different pointer…
Left on its own, a quantum state evolves deterministically under the Schr\"odinger Equation, forming superpositions. Upon measurement, however, a stochastic process governed by the Born rule collapses it to a single outcome. This dual…
I show how the quantum paradoxes occurring when we adopt a standard realist framework (or a framework in which the collapse implies a physical change of the state of the system) vanish if we abandon the idea that a measurement is related…
We give a short, critical review of the issue of decoherence. We establish the most general framework in which decoherence can be discussed, how it can be quantified and how it can be measured. We focus on environment induced decoherence…
A brief review is given of the present state of an approach to consistency between basic quantum mechanics and a unique macroscopic reality, with no assumption of branching in the state of the universe. The main new idea consists in the…
This is a preliminary version of an article to appear in the forthcoming Ashgate Companion to the New Philosophy of Physics. I don't advocate any particular approach to the measurement problem (not here, at any rate!) but I do focus on the…
The decoherent (consistent) histories formalism has been proposed as a means of eliminating measurements as a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. In this formalism, probabilities can be assigned to any description which satisfies a…
The measurement problem is the issue of explaining how the objective classical world emerges from a quantum one. Here we take a different approach. We assume that there is an objective classical system, and then ask that the standard rules…
The quantum theory of measurement has been a matter of debate for over eighty years. Most of the discussion has focused on theoretical issues with the consequence that operational prescriptions, which are integral to experimental physics,…
Ultimately, any explanation of quantum measurement must be extendable to relativistic quantum mechanics (RQM), since many precisely confirmed experimental results follow from quantum field theory (QFT), which is based on RQM. Certainly, the…
Decoherence in a quantum measurement is typically explained as an interaction with the environment that destroys coherence between the system's eigenstates, a phenomenon known as environment-induced superselection (einselection). In this…
We critically evaluate the treatment of the notion of measurement in the Consistent Histories approach to quantum mechanics. We find such a treatment unsatisfactory because it relies, often implicitly, on elements external to those provided…
The measurement problem is to explain why a system which is in a linear combination of states appears, upon measurement, to be in just one of those states. The solution given here is to first show that if one assumes linear, unitary, no…
In a recent paper, I argued against backward in time effects used by several authors to explain delayed choice experiments. I gave an explanation showing that there is no physical influence propagating from the present to the past and…
The study of environmentally induced superselection and of the process of decoherence was originally motivated by the search for the emergence of classical behavior out of the quantum substrate, in the macroscopic limit. This limit, and…
One of the hallmarks of quantum theory is the realization that distinct measurements cannot in general be performed simultaneously, in stark contrast to classical physics. In this context the notions of coexistence and joint measurability…
The quantum measurement problems are revisited from a new perspective. One of the main ideas of this work is that the basic entities of our world are various types of particles, elementary or composite. It follows that each elementary…
We reconsider a well known problem of quantum theory, i.e. the so called measurement (or macro-objectification) problem, and we rederive the fact that it gives rise to serious problems of interpretation. The novelty of our approach derives…
Many attempts have been made to characterise and solve the infamous measurement problem of quantum mechanics by advocating, implicitly or explicitly, different realist perspectives. As a result, we are still uncertain where this problem and…