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maline
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According to the GRW approach, the wf collapses objectively whenever large numbers of particles are entangled in it. My question is, how can this ever not be the case?
Take a photon passing through a prism. Its path, if reconstructed after detection, will include a refraction obeying Snell's rule. The EM model for the refraction of a wave explains that the EM forces produce oscillations in the glass molecules which then slow down the wave. I don't know how QM models refraction with one photon, but in the limit of a steady beam QM must reproduce these oscillations. This means that even with a single photon, every atom within the volume of the wf has some "possible" physical interaction with at least one "branch" of the wf. Doesn't this mean that every photon wf that is not in a vacuum, and most other particle wfs as well, are always entangled with macroscopic numbers of particles? How does GRW explain interference in any experiment involving, say, mirrors?
I understand that EM oscillations generally will not scatter energy and therefore don't cause decoherence. My question is only about the number of particles, which should disprove GRW.
Thank you
Take a photon passing through a prism. Its path, if reconstructed after detection, will include a refraction obeying Snell's rule. The EM model for the refraction of a wave explains that the EM forces produce oscillations in the glass molecules which then slow down the wave. I don't know how QM models refraction with one photon, but in the limit of a steady beam QM must reproduce these oscillations. This means that even with a single photon, every atom within the volume of the wf has some "possible" physical interaction with at least one "branch" of the wf. Doesn't this mean that every photon wf that is not in a vacuum, and most other particle wfs as well, are always entangled with macroscopic numbers of particles? How does GRW explain interference in any experiment involving, say, mirrors?
I understand that EM oscillations generally will not scatter energy and therefore don't cause decoherence. My question is only about the number of particles, which should disprove GRW.
Thank you