Roger Penrose: Objective Reduction & Nonlocal Collapse

maline
Messages
436
Reaction score
69
Roger Penrose suggested that wf collapse is an objective phenomenon caused by gravity. Is there any actual model for this? For instance, how would the nonlocal collapse work with relativity?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
maline said:
Roger Penrose suggested that wf collapse is an objective phenomenon caused by gravity. Is there any actual model for this? For instance, how would the nonlocal collapse work with relativity?

Yes, you can look up Diosi-Penrose gravitational state reduction. Other objective collapse approaches are Ghirimi-Rimini-Weber and Continuous Spontaneous Localization. It is not clear if these theories can reproduce the full range of quantum phenomena, but here are some references:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.0270
http://arxiv.org/abs/1402.5421
http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.5082
 
Last edited:
Regarding relativity, the issue is subtle, so I don't know if this is exactly right. Also, terminology varies, for example "causality" is sometimes taken to mean no superluminal siganalling, and at other times it is taken to mean relativistic causal structure.

First, surprisingly, relativity itself permits nonlocality in the sense that from an operational point of view, a theory can be viable for making predictions as long as it does not allow you to signal faster than light. In fact, the constraint of no faster than light signalling allows more nonlocality than is present in quantum mechanics: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9709026. So if we take the wave function in quantum theory as real (FAPP), then the collapse is clearly nonlocal. However, the collapse does not allow faster than light signalling of classical information, so quantum theory is viable as a relativistic theory, eg. http://arxiv.org/abs/1007.3977.

So nonlocality and relativity are compatible. What about the Bell inequalities then? There it is relativistic causal structure that is ruled out - no theory that respects relativistic causal structure can explain the nonlocal correlations of quantum mechanics. So relativistic causal structure is a tighter requirement than no faster than light signalling of classical information.

How about Lorentz covariance - can we have a theory that is nonlocal, lacks relativistic causal structure, does not allow faster than light signalling, and is also Lorentz covariant? I don't think there is anything that rules that out, but I don't know how far such a theory can be taken. The issue is discussed in eg. http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.1425 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1412.6723.
 
Last edited:
Thanks so much.
An objective reduction model takes an EPR particle's spin as being objectively in superposition until "collapse" and in a single state afterward. For spacelike separated measurements, which particle was in superposition until measurement? Is there a way out of this without an absolute stationary frame?
 
maline said:
Thanks so much.
An objective reduction model takes an EPR particle's spin as being objectively in superposition until "collapse" and in a single state afterward. For spacelike separated measurements, which particle was in superposition until measurement? Is there a way out of this without an absolute stationary frame?

Tricky, tricky question. The papers by Bedingham et al (2011) and Pearle et al (2014) in post #3 address the question. I don't know the answer, would love to see those papers discussed.
 
Last edited:
Insights auto threads is broken atm, so I'm manually creating these for new Insight articles. Towards the end of the first lecture for the Qiskit Global Summer School 2025, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, Olivia Lanes (Global Lead, Content and Education IBM) stated... Source: https://www.physicsforums.com/insights/quantum-entanglement-is-a-kinematic-fact-not-a-dynamical-effect/ by @RUTA
If we release an electron around a positively charged sphere, the initial state of electron is a linear combination of Hydrogen-like states. According to quantum mechanics, evolution of time would not change this initial state because the potential is time independent. However, classically we expect the electron to collide with the sphere. So, it seems that the quantum and classics predict different behaviours!

Similar threads

Back
Top