Grounding the randomness of quantum measurement

被引:9
作者
Jaeger, Gregg [1 ]
机构
[1] Boston Univ, Dept Elect & Comp Engn, Div Nat Sci & Math, Quantum Commun & Measurement Lab, Boston, MA 02215 USA
来源
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY A-MATHEMATICAL PHYSICAL AND ENGINEERING SCIENCES | 2016年 / 374卷 / 2068期
关键词
quantum measurement; foundations of quantum theory;
D O I
10.1098/rsta.2015.0238
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
Julian Schwinger provided to physics a mathematical reconstruction of quantum mechanics on the basis of the characteristics of sequences of measurements occurring at the atomic level of physical structure. The central component of this reconstruction is an algebra of symbols corresponding to quantum measurements, conceived of as discrete processes, which serve to relate experience to theory; collections of outcomes of identically circumscribed such measurements are attributed expectation values, which constitute the predictive content of the theory. The outcomes correspond to certain phase parameters appearing in the corresponding symbols, which are complex numbers, the algebra of which he finds by a process he refers to as 'induction'. Schwinger assumed these (individually unpredictable) phase parameters to take random, uniformly distributed definite values within a natural range. I have previously suggested that the 'principle of plenitude' may serve as a basis in principle for the occurrence of the definite measured values that are those members of the collections of measurement outcomes from which the corresponding observed statistics derive (Jaeger 2015 Found. Phys. 45, 806-819. (doi: 10.1007/s10701-015-9893-6)). Here, I evaluate Schwinger's assumption in the context of recent critiques of the notion of randomness and explicitly relate the randomness of these phases with the principle of plenitude and, in this way, provide a fundamental grounding for the objective, physically irreducible probabilities, conceived of as graded possibilities, that are attributed to measurement outcomes by quantum mechanics.
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页数:16
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