Related papers: Does particle decay cause wave function collapse: …
Almost a century after the development of quantum mechanics, we still do not have a consensus on the process of collapse of wavefunctions. Some theories require the intervention of a conscious observer while some see it as a stochastic…
Wavefunction collapse is a puzzling aspect of quantum mechanics. Designing a test to confirm the instantaneousness of collapse has turned out to be challenging, especially for collapse in configuration space. We propose a test using two…
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…
We explain the collapse of the wavefunction with the notion that, in a measurement, the system observed nucleates a first order phase transition in the measuring device. The possible final states differ by the values of macroscopic…
In a two-part system the "collapse of the wavefunction" of one part can put the other part in a state which would be difficult or impossible to achieve otherwise, in particular one sensitive to small effects in the `collapse' interaction.…
A single-particle multi-branched wave-function is studied. Usual which-path tests show that if the detector placed on one branch clicks, the detectors on the other branches remain silent. By the collapse postulate, after this click, the…
The act of measurement on a quantum state is supposed to "collapse" the state into one of several eigenstates of the operator corresponding to the observable being measured. This measurement process is sometimes described as outside…
Consider a quantum system prepared in state $\psi$, a unit vector in a $d$-dimensional Hilbert space. Let $b_1,...,b_d$ be an orthonormal basis and suppose that, with some probability $0<p<1$, $\psi$ ``collapses,'' i.e., gets replaced by…
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…
We apply the formalism of quantum measurement theory to the idealized measurement of the position of a particle with an optical interferometer, finding that the backaction of counting entangled photons systematically collapses the…
Wavefunction collapse is usually seen as a discontinuous violation of the unitary evolution of a quantum system, caused by the observation. Moreover, the collapse appears to be nonlocal in a sense which seems at odds with General…
The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of a wave-packet collapse induced by topological disconnectivity, based on the discussions of the wave-corpuscle duality. Several experimental suggestions are proposed to test this…
The assumption that wave function collapse is induced by correlating interactions of the kind that constitute measurements leads to a stochastic collapse equation that does not require the introduction of any new physical constants and that…
The wave-particle duality has been said to contain the entire mystery of quantum mechanics. Many delayed-choice experiments have been performed to further understand the wave-particle duality. Here, we reveal some flaws in the known…
The temporal measurement order and therefore the originator of the instantaneous collapse of the wavefunction of a spatiality entangled particle pair can change depending on the reference frame of an observer. This can lead to a paradox in…
The 'collapse' of the wave function in a general measuring process is analyzed by a pure quantum mechanical (QM) approach. The problem of the delayed choice and Welcher-Weg (WW) experiments is analyzed for Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometer.…
It was recently proposed that the fringe visibility in the interference pattern of a double-slit diffraction experiment with a HeNe laser beam was reduced as a consequence of the focused attention of participants on the double-slit that…
Because quantum measurements have probabilistic outcomes they can seem to violate conservation laws in individual experiments. Despite these appearances, strict conservation of momentum, orbital angular momentum, and energy can be shown to…
Predecoherence, as its name indicates, is the same physical effect as decoherence, originating in the same interactions with an environment, injecting also incoherence and breaking unitarity. But whereas decoherence acts immediately after a…
We show that controlled interference of a particle's wavefunction can be used to perform a quantum mechanical measurement in an incomplete basis. This happens because the measurement projects the particle into a lower dimensional subspace…