Related papers: Does the quantum mechanical wave function exist?

The most puzzling issue in the foundations of quantum mechanics is perhaps that of the status of the wave function of a system in a quantum universe. Is the wave function objective or subjective? Does it represent the physical state of the…

The ontological status of the quantum wavefunction remains one of the most debated questions in quantum theory. While epistemic interpretations regard the wavefunction as a reflection of our knowledge or beliefs, ontic interpretations treat…

Is the wave function a physical reality traveling through our apparatus? Is it a real wave, or it is only a mathematical tool for calculating probabilities of results of measurements? Different interpretations of the quantum mechanics (QM)…

A century after the discovery of quantum mechanics, the meaning of quantum mechanics still remains elusive. This is largely due to the puzzling nature of the wave function, the central object in quantum mechanics. If we are realists about…

The meaning of the wave function has been a hot topic of debate since the early days of quantum mechanics. Recent years have witnessed a growing interest in this long-standing question. Is the wave function ontic, directly representing a…

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…

Following the spirit of de Broglie and Einstein, we think the concepts of matter and radiation can be unified. We know a particle propagates like a wave; its motion is described by certain wave equations. At this point, it is not clear what…

Realism -- the idea that the concepts in physical theories refer to 'things' existing in the real world -- is introduced as a tool to analyze the status of the wave-function. Although the physical entities are recognized by the existence of…

The possibility of a quantum system to exhibit properties that are akin to both the classically held notions of being a particle and a wave, is one of the most intriguing aspects of the quantum description of nature. These aspects have been…

The nature of quantum waves, whether they are real physical waves or, on the contrary, mere probability waves, has been a very controversial theme since the beginning of quantum theory. Here we present some possible experiments that may…

We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distributions of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has mass and charge density distributing in space,…

The intrinsic fluctuations of the underlying, immutable quantum fields that fill all space and time can support the element of reality of a wave function in quantum mechanics. The mysterious non-locality of quantum entanglement may also be…

There are reasons to doubt that making sense of the wave function (other than as a probability algorithm) will help with the project of making sense of quantum mechanics. The consistency of the quantum-mechanical correlation laws with the…

This paper focuses on a constructive treatment of the mathematical formalism of quantum theory and a possible role of constructivist philosophy in resolving the foundational problems of quantum mechanics, particularly, the controversy over…

We discuss the quantum mechanical description of a gravitational wave interacting with a cavity electromagnetic field. Quantum fluctuations of the gravitational vacuum induce squeezing in the optical field. Moreover, this squeezing…

We introduce the quantum theoretical formulation to determine a posteriori, if existing, the quantum wave functions and to estimate the quantum interference effects of mental states. Such quantum features are actually found in the case of…

We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distribution of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has mass and charge density proportional to the modulus…

The wave function was proposed for description of quantum phenomena on the atomic level. But now it is well known that quantum phenomena are observed not only on atomic level and the wave function is used for description of macroscopic…

We outline how Bohmian mechanics works: how it deals with various issues in the foundations of quantum mechanics and how it is related to the usual quantum formalism. We then turn to some objections to Bohmian mechanics, for example the…

What ontology does realism about the quantum state suggest? The main extant view in contemporary philosophy of physics is wave-function realism. We elaborate the sense in which wave-function realism does provide an ontological picture; and…