Related papers: On the Reality of the Wavefunction
In these notes, based on lectures given as part of the Les Houches summer school on Quantum Optics and Nanophotonics in August, 2013, I have tried to give a brief survey of some important approaches and modern tendencies in quantum…
Central to quantum theory, the wavefunction is the complex distribution used to completely describe a quantum system. Despite its fundamental role, it is typically introduced as an abstract element of the theory with no explicit definition.…
An interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics is presented in the spirit of Erwin Madelung's hydrodynamic formulation of QM and Louis de Broglie's and David Bohm's pilot wave models. The aims of the approach are as follows: 1) to…
The reduction paradigm of quantum interferometry and the objectivation problem in quantum measurements are reanalyzed. Both are shown to be amenable to straightforward mathematical treatment within "every-users" simple-minded quantum…
We show that measurement incompatibility is a necessary resource to enhance the precision of quantum metrology. To utilize incompatible measurements, we propose a probabilistic method of operational quasiprobability (OQ) consisting of the…
A common learning goal for modern physics instructors is for students to recognize a difference between the experimental uncertainty of classical physics and the fundamental uncertainty of quantum mechanics. Our studies suggest this…
Harrigan and Spekkens (2010) provided a categorization of quantum ontological models classifying them as $\psi$-ontic or $\psi$-epistemic if the quantum state describes respectively either a physical reality or mere observers' knowledge.…
Interferometers capture a basic mystery of quantum mechanics: a single particle can exhibit wave behavior, yet that wave behavior disappears when one tries to determine the particle's path inside the interferometer. This idea has been…
The scientific methodology based on two descriptive levels, ontic (reality as it is ) and epistemic (observational), is briefly presented. Following Schr\"odinger, we point to the possible gap between these two descriptions. Our main aim is…
According to one possible diagnosis of the quantum measurement problem, it is a consequence of quantum fundamentalism claiming that ontology and epistemology of the world are exclusively quantum, and classical physics is only an…
This paper examines the physical meaning of the wave function in Bohmian mechanics (BM), addressing the debate between causal and nomological interpretations. While BM postulates particles with definite trajectories guided by the wave…
We first consider the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox for the system of two particles with spin 1/2 with entangled spins in first-quantized quantum mechanics (QM). If measurement is governed by wavefunction collapse, then gedanken…
Wallstrom has argued that quantum interpretations which construct the wave function starting from Madelung variables $\psi(q)=\rho(q)\exp(\frac{i}{\hbar}S(q))$, in particular, many variants of Nelsonian stochastics, are not equivalent to…
In quantum mechanics, the wavefunction predicts probabilities of possible measurement outcomes, but not which individual outcome is realised in each run of an experiment. This suggests that it describes an ensemble of states with different…
Set theory brought revolution to philosophy of mathematics and it can bring revolution to philosophy of physics too. All that stands in the way is the intuition that sets of physical objects cannot themselves be physical objects, which…
In recent years some attempts have been done to relate the RBF with wavelets in handling high dimensional multiscale problems. To the author's knowledge, however, the orthonormal and bi-orthogonal RBF wavelets are still missing in the…
Ontological models are attempts to quantitatively describe the results of a probabilistic theory, such as Quantum Mechanics, in a framework exhibiting an explicit realism-based underpinning. Unlike either the well known quasi-probability…
Effects associated in quantum mechanics with a divisible probability wave are explained as physically real consequences of the equal but opposite reaction of the apparatus as a particle is measured. Taking as illustration a Mach-Zehnder…
The purpose of the present note is twofold. Firstly, we highlight the similarities between the ontologies of Kastner's possibilist transactional interpretation (PTI) of quantum mechanics - an extension of Cramer's transactional…
We consider two straightforward rules that govern the stochastic choice in a single quantum mechanical event. They are shown to lead to absurd results if an objective state reduction is allowed to compete with an observer state reduction.…