Related papers: Does the wavefunction describe individual systems?
We suggest scattering experiments which implement the concept of ``protective measurements'' allowing the measurement of the complete wave function even when only one quantum system (rather than an ensemble) is available. Such scattering…
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 discuss the concept of a mesoscopic wavefunction, first in a general context, as the concept of wavefunction has evolved, and then in a more specific context of modeling. The paper concentrates on a simple, abstract one-dimensional…
Weak measurements have thus far been considered instrumental in the so-called direct measurement of the quantum wavefunction [Nature (London) 474, 188 (2011)]. Here we show that direct measurement of the wavefunction can be obtained by…
The discrete wave equation in a multidimensional uniform space with local defects and sources is considered. The characterization of all possible defect configurations corresponding to given amplitudes of waves at the receivers (detectors)…
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…
It is proposed in this paper that without a measurement, the wave function of a system periodically transits to a bound energy eigenfunction or the complementary wave function that is orthogonal to all the bound energy eigenfunctions.…
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…
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 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…
The paper discusses the role of interpretations, understood as multifunctions that preserve and reflect logical consequence, as refinement witnesses in the general setting of pi-institutions. This leads to a smooth generalization of the…
What is the quantum system? Consider the wavefunction of the electron, what we call single particle wave-function and assume that it contains N wave packets. If we pass all the wave packets through an electric field, all are deflected, as…
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 demonstrate that a conditional wavefunction theory enables a unified and efficient treatment of the equilibrium structure and nonadiabatic dynamics of correlated electron-ion systems. The conditional decomposition of the many-body…
We discuss how the diffraction theory of a single translation bounded measure or a family of such measures can be understood within the framework of unitary group representations. This allows us to prove an orthogonality feature of measures…
The undoing of quantum measurements is discussed in the broader context of irreversibility in physics. We give explicit examples of how a wavefunction can be uncollapsed in two solid-state experimental set-ups. Wavefunction uncollapse shows…
It was recently pointed out (and demonstrated experimentally) by Lundeen et al. that the wave function of a particle (more precisely, the wave function possessed by each member of an ensemble of identically-prepared particles) can be…
This paper critically considers the main interpretations of the wave function and offers an interpretation in which wave function is a consequence of subquantum processes taking place at the level of the organization of matter which…
Gutzwiller wavefunction is a physically well motivated trial wavefunction for describing correlated electron systems. In this work, a new approximation is introduced to facilitate evaluation of the expectation value of any operator within…
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…