A Interesting Paper On QFT and Quantum Measuremets

Messages
10,901
Reaction score
3,782
I recently came across the following paper on QFT and Quantum Measurements.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1311.0205

I have read it, but it may not be legit as it seems to accept the idea of virtual particles, which I find somewhat problematic, as discussed before.

Before reaching any conclusions, I would be interested in others' views.

Thanks
Bill
 
Physics news on Phys.org
bhobba said:
I have read it, but it may not be legit as it seems to accept the idea of virtual particles, which I find somewhat problematic, as discussed before.
It is not legit, and I guess you already knew that. Take for example
For example, in quantum electrodynamics (QED), the Dirac field and the electromagnetic field are operators (see, eg. [11]). These operators satisfy the coupled system of equations of motion of QED. These equations can be written as follows:
Dirac eq. for phi (1)
conj. Dirac eq. for phibar (2)
Wave eq. for A_u (3)
...
Because this system of equations of motion do not permit an exact solution, it is solved approximately by the method of perturbation theory on the existing small dimensionless parameter α = 1/137 (the fine-structure constant). An important property of such a system is its non-linearity.
Despite writing "the Dirac field and the electromagnetic field are operators" the electromagnetic field is represented by its classical vector potential here. These are not "the coupled system of equations of motion of QED". Such a system doesn't exist, and certainly not in such a simple naive way. Maybe you can interpret this system as a semiclassical approximation for a single electron+EM field in vacuum. The non-linearity appears because of this approximation using the classical EM field, and especially because of the "distance measure" used to judge the accuracy of this approximation.
 
  • Like
Likes bhobba and atyy
That paper has been on the archive for 11 years without being published or cited. That alone should tell you it's crap.

The title of this thread says this is "interesting". What is interesting about "unaffiliated researcher posts some hogwash"?
 
  • Like
Likes dextercioby, Lord Jestocost and bhobba
Vanadium 50 said:
That paper has been on the archive for 11 years without being published or cited. That alone should tell you it's crap.
The title of this thread says this is "interesting". What is interesting about "unaffiliated researcher posts some hogwash"?

That is my bad. You are correct, and apologies to everyone.

After reading your reply, I considered deleting my post, but I will leave it up as an example of being more careful.

My issue was it used virtual particles, which, of course, is just language for the Dyson perturbative expansion.

Thanks
Bill
 
  • Like
Likes pinball1970 and Lord Jestocost
bhobba said:
My issue was it used virtual particles

It doesn't use anything! It's babble. It's not part of the scientific discussion, just something that someone managed to sneak on the arXiv. There is nothing that can reasonably discussed.
 
The paper is obviously wrong. It says that QFT is not linear, which is wrong. The QFT state in the Hilbert space evolves linearly, as in any other quantum theory.
 
Demystifier said:
The paper is obviously wrong
Is it? Or is it obviously "not even wrong"?
 
  • Like
Likes hutchphd, DrChinese and bhobba
On any paper purporting to “solve” a particular issue in QM, I always look for their treatment of entangled systems - preferably those involving swapping. That sets a high bar, because many hypotheses won’t translate to such systems at all. Even papers that touch on entanglement simply hand wave away the obvious problems.

The cited paper doesn’t address collapse in entangled systems; they present serious problems when attempting to describe when collapse occurs and how correlations appear.
 
  • Like
Likes bhobba and Paul Colby
I am puzzled as to why this thread is still open. What is left to discuss?
 
  • #10
Vanadium 50 said:
I am puzzled as to why this thread is still open. What is left to discuss?
We’re having more fun with the badness of the paper than we ever could have from the paper itself.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
  • Love
Likes physika, Demystifier, bhobba and 2 others
  • #11
While I agree that the paper is pretty awful, it wouldn't even be in the top half on ViXra.
 
  • Haha
  • Like
Likes dextercioby, Demystifier and bhobba

Similar threads

Replies
15
Views
196
Replies
3
Views
3K
Replies
1
Views
720
Replies
1
Views
1K
Replies
326
Views
25K
Back
Top