Related papers: Insolubility of the Quantum Measurement Problem fo…
Uncertainty principle is one of the fundamental principles of quantum mechanics. In this work, we derive two uncertainty equalities, which hold for all pairs of incompatible observables. We also obtain an uncertainty relation in weak…
In this work we analyze the deep link between the 20th Century positivist re-foundation of physics and the famous measurement problem of quantum mechanics. We attempt to show why this is not an "obvious" nor "self evident" problem for the…
Quantum uncertainty is described here in two guises: indeterminacy with its concomitant indeterminism of measurement outcomes, and fuzziness, or unsharpness. Both features were long seen as obstructions of experimental possibilities that…
One of the central features of quantum theory is that there are pairs of quantum observables that cannot be measured simultaneously. This incompatibility of quantum observables is a necessary ingredient in several quantum phenomena, such as…
The measurement conundrum seems to have plagued quantum mechanics for so long that impressions of an inconsistency amongst its axioms have spawned. A demonstration that such purported inconsistency is fictitious may then be in order and is…
Indirect measurement can be used to read out the outcome of a quantum system without resorting to a straightforward approach, and it is the foundation of the measurement uncertainty relations that explain the incompatibility of conjugate…
The concept of intrinsic and operational observables in quantum mechanics is introduced. It is argued that, in any realistic description of a quantum measurement that includes a detecting device, it is possible to construct from the…
It is possible in principle to construct quantum mechanical observables and unitary operators which, if implemented in physical systems as measurements and dynamical evolution, would contradict the Church-Turing thesis, which lies at the…
The measurement problem and the role of observers have plagued quantum mechanics since its conception. Attempts to resolve these have introduced anthropomorphic or non-realist notions into physics. A shift of perspective based upon process…
A new ontological view of the quantum measurement processes is given, which has bearings on many broader issues in the foundations of quantum mechanics as well. In this scenario a quantum measurement is a non-equilibrium phase transition in…
We argue that it is fundamentally impossible to recover information about quantum superpositions when a system has interacted with a sufficiently large number of degrees of freedom of the environment. This is due to the fact that gravity…
The challenge of understanding quantum measurement persists as a fundamental issue in modern physics. Particularly, the abrupt and energy-non-conserving collapse of the wave function appears to contradict classical thermodynamic laws. The…
A solution to the second measurement problem, determining what prior microscopic properties can be inferred from measurement outcomes ("pointer positions"), is worked out for projective and generalized (POVM) measurements, using consistent…
Decoherence is widely felt to have something to do with the quantum measurement problem, but getting clear on just what is made difficult by the fact that the "measurement problem", as traditionally presented in foundational and…
The conceptual problems in quantum mechanics -- related to the collapse of the wave function, the particle-wave duality, the meaning of measurement -- arise from the need to ascribe particle character to the wave function. As will be shown,…
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle imposes a fundamental restriction in quantum mechanics, stipulating that measuring one observable completely erases the information on its conjugate one, thereby preventing simultaneous measurements of…
The measurement problem in quantum mechanics is almost exclusively discussed in situations where gravity is ignored. We discuss some recent developments in our understanding of quantum gravity and argue that they significantly alter the…
A new formulation of quantum mechanics is developed which does not require the concept of the wave-particle duality. Rather than assigning probabilities to outcomes, probabilities are instead assigned to entire fine-grained histories. The…
The measurement process in quantum mechanics is usually described by the von Neumann projection postulate, which forms a basic constituent of the laws of quantum mechanics. Since this postulate requires the outside observer of the system,…
Quantum measurement is universal for quantum computation. This universality allows alternative schemes to the traditional three-step organisation of quantum computation: initial state preparation, unitary transformation, measurement. In…