Related papers: On the Consistent Effect Histories Approach to Qua…
Although quantum coherence is a basic trait of quantum mechanics, the presence of coherences in the quantum description of a certain phenomenon does not rule out the possibility to give an alternative description of the same phenomenon in…
The problem of reconstructing information on a physical system from data acquired in long sequences of direct (projective) measurements of some simple physical quantities - histories - is analyzed within quantum mechanics; that is, the…
John Wheeler devised a gedanken experiment in which a piece of apparatus can be altered just before the arrival of particle, and this ``delayed choice'' can, seemingly, alter the quantum state of the particle at a much earlier time, long…
Many insights into the quantum world can be found by studying it from amongst more general operational theories of physics. In this thesis, we develop an approach to the study of such theories purely in terms of the behaviour of their…
Topos theory has been suggested by Doring and Isham as an alternative mathematical structure with which to formulate physical theories. In particular it has been used to reformulate standard quantum mechanics in such a way that a novel type…
We examine the measurability of the temporal ordering of two events, as well as event coincidences. In classical mechanics, a measurement of the order-of-arrival of two particles is shown to be equivalent to a measurement involving only one…
Quantum coherence is a basic feature of quantum physics. Combined with tensor product structure of state space, it gives rise to the novel concepts such as entanglement and quantum correlations, which play a crucial role in quantum…
A generalization of the action principle of classical mechanics, motivated by the Closed Time Path (CTP) scheme of quantum field theory, is presented to deal with initial condition problems and dissipative forces. The similarities of the…
In standard quantum theory, the ideas of information-entropy and of pure states are closely linked. States are represented by density matrices $\rho$ on a Hilbert space and the information-entropy $-tr(\rho\log\rho)$ is minimised on pure…
We use the decoherent histories approach to quantum theory to compute the probability of a non-relativistic particle crossing $x=0$ during an interval of time. For a system consisting of a single non-relativistic particle, histories…
The decoherent histories formalism, developed by Griffiths, Gell-Mann, and Hartle is a general framework in which to formulate a timeless, `generalised' quantum theory and extract predictions from it. Recent advances in spin foam models…
The geometric form of standard quantum mechanics is compatible with the two postulates: 1) The laws of physics are invariant under the choice of experimental setup and 2) Every quantum observation or event is intrinsically statistical.…
The equivalence postulate approach to quantum mechanics aims to formulate quantum mechanics from a fundamental geometrical principle. Underlying the formulation there exists a basic cocycle condition which is invariant under…
The theory of decoherent histories is checked for the requirement of statistical independence of subsystems. Strikingly, this is satisfied only when the decoherence functional is diagonal in both its real a n d imaginary parts. In…
We present a reformulation of quantum mechanics in terms of probability measures and functions on a general classical sample space and in particular in terms of probability densities and functions on phase space. The basis of our proceeding…
Quantum coherence is a fundamental feature of quantum mechanics and an underlying requirement for most quantum information tasks. In the resource theory of coherence, incoherent states are diagonal with respect to a fixed orthonormal basis,…
The equivalence postulate approach to quantum mechanics entails a derivation of quantum mechanics from a fundamental geometrical principle. Underlying the formalism there exists a basic cocycle condition, which is invariant under…
Using the Gell-Mann and Hartle formalism of generalized quantum mechanics of closed systems, we study the classical limit of coarse-grained spacetime histories and their decoherence. The system under consideration is one-dimensional and…
Quantum information science is a source of task-related axioms whose consequences can be explored in general settings encompassing quantum mechanics, classical theory, and more. Quantum states are compendia of probabilities for the outcomes…
This thesis has three aims: (1) to clarify in detail the relation between the decoherence mechanism and the problem of definite outcomes, (2) to dispel common misconceptions about the measurement problem in quantum mechanics, and (3) to…