Completely top-down hierarchical structure in quantum mechanics

DOI10.1073/PNAS.1807554115MaRDI QIDQ5222819zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Y. Aharonov, Eliahu Cohen, Jeff Tollaksen

Publication date 3 July 2019

Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.07052

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Special quantum systems, such as solvable systems (81Q80)

Abstract: Can a large system be fully characterized using its subsystems via inductive reasoning? Is it possible to completely reduce the behavior of a complex system to the behavior of its simplest "atoms"? In the following paper we answer these questions on the negative for a specific class of systems and measurements. We begin with simple two-particle example, where strong correlations arise between two apparently empty boxes. This leads to new surprising effects within atomic and electromagnetic systems. A general construction based on pre- and post-selected ensembles is then suggested, where the N-body correlation can be genuinely perceived as a global property, as long as one is limited to preforming a small set of measurements which we term "strictly local". We conclude that within time-symmetric quantum mechanics and under certain boundary conditions, high-order correlations can determine low-order ones, but not vice versa. Moreover, the latter seem to provide no information at all regarding the former. This supports a top-down structure in many-body quantum mechanics.

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