Related papers: The Reality and Measurement of the Wavefunction
We draw attention to an elementary flaw in a recently proposed experiment to measure the wave function of a single quantum system.
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…
An experiment that would measure non--commuting quantum mechanical observables without collapsing the wave function has been recently proposed by Y Aharonov and J Anandan. These authors argue that this "protected measurement" may give…
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…
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…
Quantum mechanics is an outstandingly successful description of nature, underpinning fields from biology through chemistry to physics. At its heart is the quantum wavefunction, the central tool for describing quantum systems. Yet it is…
Within the Ontological Models Framework (OMF), Pusey, Barrett, and Rudolph (PBR) have given an argument by which they claimed that the epistemic view on the wavefunction should be ruled out. This study highlights an incorrect conclusion in…
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.…
It has been debated whether protective measurement implies the reality of the wave function. In this paper, I present a new analysis of the relationship between protective measurements and the reality of the wave function. First, I briefly…
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…
My view on the meaning of the quantum wave function and its connection to protective measurements is described. The wave function and only the wave function is the ontology of the quantum theory. Protective measurements support this view…
The degree-of-presence (of the quantum system) concept, accompanying that of the wavefunction-reality postulate, is introduced and studied in two ways. To begin with, an incomplete exposition of the present author's views is given.…
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,…
In discussion of the interpretation of quantum mechanics the terms `ontic' and `epistemic' are often used in the sense of pertaining to what exists, and pertaining to cognition or knowledge respectively. The terms are also often associated…
Generally a central role has been assigned to an unavoidable physical interaction between the measuring instrument and the physical entity measured in the change in the wave function that often occurs in measurement in quantum mechanics. A…
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…
This chapter reexamines wave function realism (WFR) through the lens of phenomenology. We begin by situating WFR within the broader debate about the ontology of the quantum state and the temptation to "read off" metaphysics from…
We show that it is possible to measure Schrodinger wave of a single quantum system. This provides a strong argument for associating physical reality with the quantum state of a single system, and challenges the usual assumption that the…
Within the class of ontological interpretations of quantum theory where a physical system comprises a particle and a field (wavefunction) guiding it, an empty wave is a segment of the wavefunction not containing the particle. We examine the…
Several new physics experiments in 1998 were performed and analyzed to show the subtlety of quantum theory, including the "wave-particle duality" and the non-separability of two-particle entangled state. Here it is shown that the…