Histories without collapse

DOI10.1007/S10773-022-05046-5MaRDI QIDQ2114003zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Anthony Sudbery

Publication date 14 March 2022

Published in International Journal of Theoretical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.13430

zbMATH Keywords

foundationsquantum mechanicshistories

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Quantum coherence, entanglement, quantum correlations (81P40) Closed and approximate solutions to the Schrödinger, Dirac, Klein-Gordon and other equations of quantum mechanics (81Q05) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to quantum theory (81-01)

Abstract: This paper is a comparison of two theories of the probability of a history in quantum mechanics. One is derived from Copenhagen quantum mechanics using the projection postulate and is the basis of the "consistent histories" interpretation; the other is based on a proposal by Bell, originally for the "pilot state" theory but here applied to pure unitary quantum mechanics. The first can be used for a wider class of histories but depends on the projection postulate, or "collapse", which is widely held to be an unsatisfactory feature of the theory; the second can be used in a theory of the universal state vector without collapse. We examine a simple model based on Wigner's friend, in which Bell's model and the projection postulate give different probabilities for the histories of a sentient system. We also examine the Frauchiger-Renner extension of this model, in which comparison of the two calculations of histories throws light on the contradiction found by Frauchiger and Renner. By extending the model to equip the observer with a memory, we reduce the probability of histories to the use of the Born rule at a single time, and show that the Born rule, with the memory, gives the same result as applying projection in the course of the history, because of entanglement with the memory: entanglement implements collapse. We discuss the implications of this for the use of histories in quantum cosmology.

Recommendations

• History Presentation of collapse models
• Possibilities without possible worlds/histories
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• Decoherent histories and realism
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Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4009114 (Why is no real title available?)
• Consistent Quantum Theory
• John Bell and the great enterprise
• Nonlocality versus modified realism
• Single-world theory of the extended Wigner's friend experiment
• Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics
• The logic of the future in quantum theory
• This damned quantum jumping

Cited in

(2)

• History Presentation of collapse models
• Distinguishing initial state-vectors from each other in histories formulations and the PBR argument

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