Local interpretations of quantum mechanics

Finbar
Messages
342
Reaction score
2
I was wondering if anyone knows whether there exist strictly local interpretations of quantum mechanics. I understand that Bell's theorem tells us that any hidden variable theory must be non-local if it is to give QM. But what about other interpretations such as many worlds? It is obvious that wave function collapse is non-local so any interpretation that views this as a real process must be non-local. This is why my guess is that MW could be local since there is no physical collapse. What about decoherent histories?

Thanks,

Fin.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
Try this blog:

https://www.physicsforums.com/blog.php?b=3622
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Finbar, as you can see at my blog mentioned above, both MW and decoherent histories are local in a certain sense, but with a big price to pay for that.
 
Finbar said:
I was wondering if anyone knows whether there exist strictly local interpretations of quantum mechanics. I understand that Bell's theorem tells us that any hidden variable theory must be non-local if it is to give QM. But what about other interpretations such as many worlds? It is obvious that wave function collapse is non-local so any interpretation that views this as a real process must be non-local. This is why my guess is that MW could be local since there is no physical collapse. What about decoherent histories?

Thanks,

Fin.

In addition to those mentioned above, there is another important class of local interpretations: the Time Symmetric group. In these, the causal light cone extends in both directions of time. This gives the appearance of non-locality but c is still a limiting factor for propagation of effects.

Here are a couple of references to get you started on these:

http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.1232
New Insights on Time-Symmetry in Quantum Mechanics
Yakir Aharonov, Jeff Tollaksen (2007)

http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.4348
Relational Blockworld: A Path Integral Based Interpretation of Quantum Field Theory
W.M. Stuckey, Michael Silberstein, Timothy McDevitt
 
I understand that the world of interpretations of quantum mechanics is very complex, as experimental data hasn't completely falsified the main deterministic interpretations (such as Everett), vs non-deterministc ones, however, I read in online sources that Objective Collapse theories are being increasingly challenged. Does this mean that deterministic interpretations are more likely to be true? I always understood that the "collapse" or "measurement problem" was how we phrased the fact that...
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. In her YouTube video Bell’s Theorem Experiments on Entangled Photons, Dr. Fugate shows how polarization-entangled photons violate Bell’s inequality. In this Insight, I will use quantum information theory to explain why such entangled photon-polarization qubits violate the version of Bell’s inequality due to John Clauser, Michael Horne, Abner Shimony, and Richard Holt known as the...
This post is a spin-off of the original post that discussed Barandes theory, A new realistic stochastic interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, for any details about the interpretation in general PLEASE look up for an answer there. Now I want this post to focus on this pre-print: J. A. Barandes, "New Prospects for a Causally Local Formulation of Quantum Theory", arXiv 2402.16935 (2024) My main concerns are that Barandes thinks this deflates the anti-classical Bell's theorem. In Barandes...
Back
Top