Related papers: Uncollapsing the wave function
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…
A trapped 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate is initially put into a superposition of two internal states. Under the effect of gravity and by means of a second transition, we prepare two vertically displaced condensates in the same internal…
Small non-spherical perturbations of a spherically symmetric but time-dependent background spacetime can be used to model situations of astrophysical interest, for example the production of gravitational waves in a supernova explosion. We…
The one-century-old Stern-Gerlach setup is paradigmatic for a quantum measurement. We visualize the electron trajectories following the Bohmian zig-zag dynamics. This dynamics was developed in order to deal with the fundamentally massless…
The wave function of the universe is evaluated by using the Euclidean path integral approach. As is well known, the real Euclidean path integral diverges because the Einstein-Hilbert action is not positive definite. In order to obtain a…
The Stern-Gerlach (SG) effect, discovered almost a century ago, has become a paradigm of quantum mechanics. Surprisingly there is little evidence that the original scheme with freely propagating atoms exposed to gradients from macroscopic…
In the optical Stern-Gerlach effect the two branches in which the incoming atomic packet splits up can display interference pattern outside the cavity when a field measurement is made which erases the which-way information on the quantum…
A long-standing quantum-mechanical puzzle is whether the collapse of the wave function is a real physical process or simply an epiphenomenon. This puzzle lies at the heart of the measurement problem. One way to choose between the…
In non-relativistic quantum mechanics, path integrals are normally derived from the Schroedinger equation. This assumes the two formalisms are equivalent. Since time plays a very different role in the Schroedinger equation and in path…
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…
A modified form of quantum mechanics which includes a new mechanism for wavefunction collapse is proposed. The collapse provides a solution to the quantum measurement problem. This modified quantum mechanics is shown to arise naturally from…
We propose that the mechanism responsible for the ``collapse of the wave function" (or "decoherence" in its broadest meaning) in quantum mechanics is the nonlinearities already present in the theory via nonabelian gauge interactions. Unlike…
The notion of a physical collapse of the wave function is embodied in dynamical collapse models. These involve a modification of the unitary evolution of the wave function such as to give a dynamical account of collapse. The resulting…
We propose a novel semiclassical mechanism to unify quantum mechanics and general relativity, where wave function collapse in a superposition state induces a rapid change in the energy-momentum tensor, triggering spacetime dynamics that…
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…
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…
Quantum entanglement occurs not just in discrete systems such as spins, but also in the spatial wave functions of systems with more than one degree of freedom. It is easy to introduce students to entangled wave functions at an early stage,…
Two fundamental, and unsolved problems in physics are: i) the resolution of the "measurement problem" in quantum mechanics ii) the quantization of strongly nonlinear (nonabelian) gauge theories. The aim of this paper is to suggest that…
The assumption that wave function collapse is a real occurrence has very interesting consequences - both experimental and theoretical. Besides predicting observable deviations from linear evolution, it implies that these deviations must…
Originally conceived as a gedankenexperiment, an apparatus consisting of two Stern--Gerlach apparatuses joined in an inverted manner touched on the fundamental question of the reversibility of evolution in quantum mechanics. Theoretical…