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Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function

量子物理 2008-11-26 v1 广义相对论与量子宇宙学 高能物理 - 理论 逻辑

摘要

When suitably generalized and interpreted, the path-integral offers an alternative to the more familiar quantal formalism based on state-vectors, selfadjoint operators, and external observers. Mathematically one generalizes the path-integral-as-propagator to a {\it quantal measure} μ\mu on the space Ω\Omega of all ``conceivable worlds'', and this generalized measure expresses the dynamics or law of motion of the theory, much as Wiener measure expresses the dynamics of Brownian motion. Within such ``histories-based'' schemes new, and more ``realistic'' possibilities open up for resolving the philosophical problems of the state-vector formalism. In particular, one can dispense with the need for external agents by locating the predictive content of μ\mu in its sets of measure zero: such sets are to be ``precluded''. But unrestricted application of this rule engenders contradictions. One possible response would remove the contradictions by circumscribing the application of the preclusion concept. Another response, more in the tradition of ``quantum logic'', would accommodate the contradictions by dualizing Ω\Omega to a space of ``co-events'' and effectively identifying reality with an element of this dual space.

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引用

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0610204,
  title  = {Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function},
  author = {Rafael D. Sorkin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0610204},
  year   = {2008}
}

备注

plainTeX, 24 pages, no figures. To appear in a special volume of {\it Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General} entitled ``The Quantum Universe'' and dedicated to Giancarlo Ghirardi on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Most current version is available at http://www.physics.syr.edu/~sorkin/some.papers/ (or wherever my home-page may be)