Related papers: The Reality and Measurement of the Wavefunction
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 assume that particles are point-like objects even when not observed. We report on the consequences of our assumption within the realm of quantum theory. An important consequence is the necessity of vacuum fields to account for particle…
We will give a new model for measurements of a quantum system such that the measuring apparatuses are described by a unital separable non-type I nuclear simple C$^*$-algebra equipped with certain unital endomorphisms and pure states. An…
It is widely known that `collapse of the wave function' on a quantum system A may be brought about by an interaction with another quantum system B. We will prove that this is not just a possible, but a necessary consequence of information…
At present, there are two possible, and equally plausible, explanations for the physics of quantum measurement. The first explanation, known as the many-worlds interpretation, does not require any modification of quantum mechanics, and…
The idea that the wave function represents information, or knowledge, rather than the state of a microscopic object has been held to solve foundational problems of quantum mechanics. Realist interpretation schemes, like Bohmian…
Wave-particle duality and complementarity principle stand at the conceptual core of quantum theory in its orthodox Copenhagen interpretation. They imply that the wave behavior and particle behavior of quantum objects are mutually exclusive…
The issue of ontology in quantum mechanics, or equivalently the issue of the reality of the wave function is critically examined within standard quantum theory. It is argued that though no strict ontology is possible within quantum theory,…
A quantum-mechanical wave function is complex, but all observations are real, expressible through expectation values and transition matrix elements that involve the wave functions. It can be useful to separate at the outset the amplitude…
The most debated status of the wave function of Quantum Mechanics is discussed in the light of the epistemological vs ontological opposition.
The idea that wave-function collapse is a physical process stems from a misunderstanding of probability and the role it plays in quantum mechanics.
A century on from the development of quantum theory, the interpretation of a quantum state is still discussed. If a physicist claims to have produced a system with a particular wave function, does this represent directly a physical wave of…
A goal of most interpretations of quantum mechanics is to avoid the apparent intrusion of the observer into the measurement process. Such intrusion is usually seen to arise because observation somehow selects a single actuality from among…
Recent empirical work in the field of 'weak measurements' has yielded novel ways of more directly accessing and exploring the quantum wavefunction. Measuring either position or momentum for a photon in a 'weak' manner yields a wide range of…
One of the basic lessons of quantum theory is that one cannot obtain information on an unknown quantum state without disturbing it. Hence, by performing a certain measurement, we limit the other possible measurements that can be effectively…
We use a simple example to illustrate why it is not possible to consider that a measurement reveals an underlying objective reality of a property of a quantum system, that continues the same after the measurement is performed. This kind of…
Testable predictions of quantum mechanics are invariant under time reversal. But the change of the quantum state in time is not so, neither in the collapse nor in the no-collapse interpretations of the theory. This fact challenges the…
This paper has been withdrawn by the author. In this short paper I will put in evidence a problem nested in Ozawa's effort to block von Neumann's chains and in his attributing the wave-collapse to a interaction between systems. This…
The possibility of consistency between the basic quantum principles of quantum mechanics and wave function collapse is reexamined. A specific interpretation of environment is proposed for this aim and applied to decoherence. When the…
This chapter introduces the main ideas and the most important methods for representing the electronic wavefunction through machine learning models. The wavefunction of a N-electron system is an incredibly complicated mathematical object,…