Thursday, May 3, 2012

1205.0293 (Andreas O. Tell)

A Theory of Quantum Observation and the Emergence of the Born Rule    [PDF]

Andreas O. Tell
The universe we observe requires a twofold concept of locality. On one hand there are the strictly Einstein-local interactions that generate the time evolution, on the other hand the quantum state space requires a non-local description of multiple particle correlations. This article demonstrates that an observer in such a universe has to rely on local interactions to learn about his environment. He is therefore severely restricted in his ability to reconstruct the local physical universe. We argue that this reconstruction is the defining process of observation. The reconstructed quantum dynamics are shown to be non-unitary and non-linear in general, even if the system evolves unitarily on a global scale. Interactions with massless free particles are found to have great influence on observation. The special case of a scattering process with an uncharged massless vector boson can result in a stochastic process conforming to the Born rule. Based on this result, a theory of quantum measurement, that describes a measurement device as a cascade of certain scattering events is formulated.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0293

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