Lectures on dynamical models for quantum measurements
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Abstract: In textbooks, ideal quantum measurements are described in terms of the tested system only by the collapse postulate and Born's rule. This level of description offers a rather flexible position for the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Here we analyse an ideal measurement as a process of interaction between the tested system S and an apparatus A, so as to derive the properties postulated in textbooks. We thus consider within standard quantum mechanics the measurement of a quantum spin component by an apparatus A, being a magnet coupled to a bath. We first consider the evolution of the density operator of S+A describing a large set of runs of the measurement process. The approach describes the disappearance of the off-diagonal terms ("truncation") of the density matrix as a physical effect due to A, while the registration of the outcome has classical features due to the large size of the pointer variable, the magnetisation. A quantum ambiguity implies that the density matrix at the final time can be decomposed on many bases, not only the one of the measurement. This quantum oddity prevents to connect individual outcomes to measurements, a difficulty known as the "measurement problem". It is shown that it is circumvented by the apparatus as well, since the evolution in a small time interval erases all decompositions, except the one on the measurement basis. Once one can derive the outcome of individual events from quantum theory, the so-called "collapse of the wave function" or the "reduction of the state" appears as the result of a selection of runs among the original large set. Hence nothing more than standard quantum mechanics is needed to explain features of measurements. The employed statistical formulation is advocated for the teaching of quantum theory.
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Cites work
- Do we really understand quantum mechanics?
- From microphysics to macrophysics. Methods and applications of statistical physics. II. Translated from the French by D. ter Haar.
- Is the contextuality loophole fatal for the derivation of Bell inequalities?
- Understanding quantum measurement from the solution of dynamical models
Cited in
(13)- Dynamical interpretation for the quantum measurement projection postulate
- A sub-ensemble theory of ideal quantum measurement processes
- A theory of quantum (statistical) measurement
- The quantum measurement process in an exactly solvable model
- Phase transitions and quantum measurements
- Interaction of the classical particle and quantum apparatus
- scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1163214 (Why is no real title available?)
- Dynamics of quantum measurements employing two Curie-Weiss apparatuses
- Decoherence: a numerical study
- Microscopic quantum jump: an interpretation of measurement problem
- Pointers for quantum measurement theory
- Reduction of wave function by stationary phase of macrovariable
- Understanding quantum measurement from the solution of dynamical models
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