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Full-Text Articles in Quantum Physics
Can The Wave Function In Configuration Space Be Replaced By Single-Particle Wave Functions In Physical Space?, Travis Norsen, Damiano Marian, Xavier Oriols
Can The Wave Function In Configuration Space Be Replaced By Single-Particle Wave Functions In Physical Space?, Travis Norsen, Damiano Marian, Xavier Oriols
Physics: Faculty Publications
The ontology of Bohmian mechanics includes both the universal wave function (living in 3N-dimensional configuration space) and particles (living in ordinary 3-dimensional physical space). Proposals for understanding the physical significance of the wave function in this theory have included the idea of regarding it as a physically-real field in its 3N-dimensional space, as well as the idea of regarding it as a law of nature. Here we introduce and explore a third possibility in which the configuration space wave function is simply eliminated – replaced by a set of single-particle pilot-wave fields living in ordinary physical space. Such a re-formulation …
Weak Measurement And Bohmian Conditional Wave Functions, Travis Norsen
Weak Measurement And Bohmian Conditional Wave Functions, Travis Norsen
Physics: Faculty Publications
It was recently pointed out (and demonstrated experimentally) by Lundeen et al. that the wave function of a particle (more precisely, the wave function possessed by each member of an ensemble of identically-prepared particles) can be "directly measured" using weak measurement. Here it is shown that if this same technique is applied, with appropriate post-selection, to one particle from a (perhaps entangled) multi-particle system, the result is precisely the so-called "conditional wave function" of Bohmian mechanics. Thus, a plausibly operationalist method for defining the wave function of a quantum mechanical sub-system corresponds to the natural definition of a sub-system wave …
Can Bohmian Mechanics Be Made Relativistic?, Detlef Dürr, Sheldon Goldstein, Travis Norsen, Ward Struyve, Nino Zaghì
Can Bohmian Mechanics Be Made Relativistic?, Detlef Dürr, Sheldon Goldstein, Travis Norsen, Ward Struyve, Nino Zaghì
Physics: Faculty Publications
In relativistic space-time, Bohmian theories can be formulated by introducing a privileged foliation of space-time. The introduction of such a foliation – as extra absolute space-time structure – would seem to imply a clear violation of Lorentz invariance, and thus a conflict with fundamental relativity. Here, we consider the possibility that, instead of positing it as extra structure, the required foliation could be covariantly determined by the wave function. We argue that this allows for the formulation of Bohmian theories that seem to qualify as fundamentally Lorentz invariant. We conclude with some discussion of whether or not they might also …