Related papers: Measurement, interpretation and information
Although quantum mechanics is one of our most successful physical theories, there has been a long-standing debate about the interpretation of the wave function---the central object of the theory. Two prominent views are that (i) it…
We attempt to dissolve the measurement problem using an anthropic principle which allows us to invoke rational observers. We argue that the key feature of such observers is that they are rational (we need not care whether they are…
To elucidate ideal measurements, one must explain how individual events emerge from quantum theory which deals with statistical ensembles, and how different may end up with different final states. This so-called "measurement problem" is…
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 mechanical measurement problem does not arise in the quantum real number approach to quantum measurements of the first kind. The attributes of individual microscopic systems in the experimental ensemble always have qr-number…
Quantum measurements are noncontextual, with outcomes independent of which other commuting observables are measured at the same time, when consistently analyzed using principles of Hilbert space quantum mechanics rather than classical…
In many a traditional physics textbook, a quantum measurement is defined as a projective measurement represented by a Hermitian operator. In quantum information theory, however, the concept of a measurement is dealt with in complete…
The topic of measurement in relativistic quantum field theory is addressed in this article. Some of the long standing problems of this subject are highlighted, including the incompatibility of an instantaneous ``collapse of the…
We describe a quantum mechanical measurement as a variational principle including interaction between the system under measurement and the measurement apparatus. Augmenting the action with a nonlocal term (a double integration over the…
The existence of incompatible measurements, i.e. measurements which cannot be performed simultaneously on a single copy of a quantum state, constitutes an important distinction between quantum mechanics and classical theories. While…
A conceptual difficulty in the foundations of quantum mechanics is the quantum measurement problem (QMP), essentially concerned with the apparent non-unitarity of the measurement process and the classicality of macroscopic systems. In an…
A framework for a quantum information theory is introduced that is based on the measure of quantum information associated with probability distribution predicted by quantum measuring of state. The entanglement between states of measured…
The origin of non-classical correlations is difficult to identify since the uncertainty principle requires that information obtained about one observable invariably results in the disturbance of any other non-commuting observable. Here,…
The kind of information provided by a measurement is determined in terms of the correlation established between observables of the apparatus and the measured system. Using the framework of quantum measurement theory, necessary and…
We present the amounts of information, fidelity, and reversibility obtained by arbitrary quantum measurements on completely unknown states. These quantities are expressed as functions of the singular values of a measurement operator…
An attempt is made to formulate quantum mechanics (QM) in physical rather than in mathematical terms. It is argued that the appropriate conceptual framework for QM is "contextual objectivity", which includes an objective definition of the…
The effects of any quantum measurement can be described by a collection of measurement operators {M_m} acting on the quantum state of the measured system. However, the Hilbert space formalism tends to obscure the relationship between the…
Some measurements in quantum mechanics disturb each other. This has puzzled physicists since the formulation of the theory, but only in recent decades has the incompatibility of measurements been analyzed in depth and detail, using the…
Measurement theory is the cornerstone of science, but no equivalent theory underpins the huge volumes of non-numerical data now being generated. In this study, we show that replacing numbers with alternative mathematical models, such as…
A model of quantum measurement is proposed, which aims to describe statistical mechanical aspects of this phenomenon, starting from a purely Hamiltonian formulation. The macroscopic measurement apparatus is modeled as an ideal Bose gas, the…