Weekly Papers on Quantum Foundations (3)

Gryb, Sean and Thebault, Karim (2018) Bouncing Unitary Cosmology II. Mini-Superspace Phenomenology. [Preprint]
Gryb, Sean and Thebault, Karim (2018) Bouncing Unitary Cosmology I. Mini-Superspace General Solution. [Preprint]
Gryb, Sean and Thebault, Karim P Y (2018) Superpositions of the cosmological constant allow for singularity resolution and unitary evolution in quantum cosmology. [Preprint]
Christian, Joy (2017) Quantum Correlations are Weaved by the Spinors of the Euclidean Primitives. [Preprint]
Hubert, Mario and Romano, Davide (2017) The Wave-Function as a Multi-Field. [Preprint]

Authors: Juan Villacrés

In this work I argue for the existence of an ontological state in which no entity in it can be more basic than the others in such a state. This is used to provide conceptual justification for a method that is applied to obtain the Schr\”{o}dinger equation, the Klein-Gordon equation, and the Klein-Gordon equation for a particle in an electromagnetic field. Additionally, it is argued that the existence of such state is incompatible with indirect realism; and the discussion suggests that a panexeperientialist view is a straightforward means to embrace it.

Authors: Tonghua LiuJieci WangJiliang JingHeng Fan

We study the dynamics of steering between two correlated Unruh-Dewitt detectors when one of them locally interacts with external scalar field via different quantifiers. We find that the quantum steering, either measured by the entropic steering inequality or the Cavalcanti-Jones-Wiseman-Reid inequality, is fragile under the influence of Unruh thermal noise. The quantum steering is found always asymmetric and the asymmetry is extremely sensitive to the initial state parameter. In addition, the steering-type quantum correlations experience “sudden death” for some accelerations, which are quite different from the behaviors of other quantum correlations in the same system. It is worth noting that the domination value of the tight quantum steering exists a transformation point with increasing acceleration. We also find that the robustness of quantum steerability under the Unruh thermal noise can be realized by choosing the smallest energy gap in the detectors.

Authors: Hisham Ghassib

Relativity was Einstein’s main research program and scientific project. It was an open-ended program that developed throughout Einstein’s scientific career, giving rise to special relativity, general relativity and unified field theory. In this paper, we want to uncover the methodological logic of the Einsteinian program, which animated the whole program and its development, and as it was revealed in SR, GR, and unified field theory. We aver that the same methodological logic animated all these theories as Einstein’s work progressed. Each of these theories contributed towards constructing Einstein’s ambitious program. This paper is not a paper in the history of Relativity, but, rather, it utilizes our knowledge of this history to uncover the methodological logic of the relativity program and its development. This logic is latent in the historical narrative, but is not identical to it. We hope to show that the Einsteinian relativity project is still relevant today as a theoretical scheme, despite its failures and despite quantum mechanics.

Manchak, JB and Weatherall, James Owen (2018) (Information) Paradox Regained? A Brief Comment on Maudlin on Black Hole Information Loss. [Preprint]
Quantum processor named after Alaska’s Tangled Lakes
Okon, Elias and Sebastián, Miguel Ángel (2018) A Consciousness-Based Quantum Objective Collapse Model. [Preprint]
Kuby, Daniel (2018) Carnap, Feyerabend and the pragmatic theory of observation. [Preprint]

Recently, increased computational power and data availability, as well as algorithmic advances, have led machine learning (ML) techniques to impressive results in regression, classification, data generation and reinforcement learning tasks. Despite these successes, the proximity to the physical limits of chip fabrication alongside the increasing size of datasets is motivating a growing number of researchers to explore the possibility of harnessing the power of quantum computation to speed up classical ML algorithms. Here we review the literature in quantum ML and discuss perspectives for a mixed readership of classical ML and quantum computation experts. Particular emphasis will be placed on clarifying the limitations of quantum algorithms, how they compare with their best classical counterparts and why quantum resources are expected to provide advantages for learning problems. Learning in the presence of noise and certain computationally hard problems in ML are identified as promising directions for the field. Practical questions, such as how to upload classical data into quantum form, will also be addressed.

Authors: Miloslav Znojil

In the global framework of quantum theory the individual quantum systems seem clearly separated into two families with the respective manifestly Hermitian and hiddenly Hermitian operators of their Hamiltonian. In the light of certain preliminary studies these two families seem to have an empty overlap. In this paper we demonstrate that it is not so. We are going to show that whenever the interaction potentials are chosen weakly nonlocal, the separation of the two families may disappear. The overlaps alias interfaces between the Hermitian and non-Hermitian descriptions of the unitarily evolving quantum system in question may become non-empty. This assertion will be illustrated via a few analytically solvable elementary models.

Authors: Xavier CalmetBoris Latosh

Using effective field theoretical methods, we show that besides the already observed gravitational waves, quantum gravity predicts two further massive classical fields leading to two new massive waves. We set a limit on the masses of these new modes using data from the E\”ot-Wash experiment. We point out that the existence of these new states is a model independent prediction of quantum gravity. We then explain how these new classical fields could impact astrophysical processes and in particular the binary inspirals of neutron stars or black holes. We calculate the emission rate of these new states in binary inspirals astrophysical processes.

Authors: A. S. Sanz

Perhaps because of the popularity that trajectory-based methodologies have always had in Chemistry and the important role they have played, Bohmian mechanics has been increasingly accepted within this community, particularly in those areas of the theoretical chemistry based on quantum mechanics, e.g., quantum chemistry, chemical physics, or physical chemistry. From a historical perspective, this evolution is remarkably interesting, particularly when the scarce applications of Madelung’s former hydrodynamical formulation, dating back to the late 1960s and the 1970s, are compared with the many different applications available at present. As also happens with classical methodologies, Bohmian trajectories are essentially used to described and analyze the evolution of chemical systems, to design and implement new computational propagation techniques, or a combination of both. In the first case, Bohmian trajectories have the advantage that they avoid invoking typical quantum-classical correspondence to interpret the corresponding phenomenon or process, while in the second case quantum-mechanical effects appear by themselves, without the necessity to include artificially quantization conditions. Rather than providing an exhaustive revision and analysis of all these applications (excellent monographs on the issue are available in the literature for the interested reader, which can be consulted in the bibliography here supplied), this Chapter has been prepared in a way that it may serve the reader to acquire a general view (or impression) on how Bohmian mechanics has permeated the different traditional levels or pathways to approach molecular systems in Chemistry: electronic structure, molecular dynamics and statistical mechanics. This is done with the aid of some illustrative examples — theoretical developments in some cases and numerical simulations in other cases.

Authors: Sreenath K. ManikandanAndrew N. Jordan

We expand the time reversal symmetry arguments of quantum mechanics, originally proposed by Wigner in the context of unitary dynamics, to contain situations including generalized measurements for monitored quantum systems. We propose a scheme to derive the time reversed measurement operators by considering the Schr\”{o}dinger picture dynamics of a qubit coupled to a measuring device, and show that the time reversed measurement operators form a Positive Operator Valued Measure (POVM) set. We propose a general rule to reverse any rank two qubit measurement, and show that the time reversed dynamics obeys the retrodicted equations of the forward dynamics starting from the time reversed final state. We present three particular examples to illustrate time reversal of measurements: (1) the Gaussian spin measurement, (2) a dichotomous POVM for spin, and (3) the measurement of qubit fluorescence. We demonstrate the time reversal invariance of dynamical equations using the example of qubit fluorescence. We also generalize the discussion of a statistical arrow of time for continuous quantum measurements introduced by Dressel et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 220507 (2017)]: we show that the backward probabilities can be computed from a process similar to retrodiction from the time reversed final state, and extend the definition of an arrow of time to ensembles prepared with pre- and post-selections, where we obtain a non-vanishing arrow of time in general. We discuss sufficient conditions for when time’s arrow vanishes and show our method also captures the contributions to time’s arrow due to natural physical processes like relaxation of an atom to its ground state. As a special case, we recover the time reversibility of the weak value as its complex conjugate using our method, and discuss how our conclusions differ from the time-symmetry argument of Aharonov-Bergmann-Lebowitz (ABL) rule.

Authors: Davor CuricMagdalena C. RichardsonGuillaume S. ThekkadathJefferson FlórezLambert GinerJeff S. Lundeen

Unlike regular time evolution governed by the Schr\”odinger equation, standard quantum measurement appears to violate time-reversal symmetry. Measurement creates random disturbances (e.g., collapse) that prevents back-tracing the quantum state of the system. The effect of these disturbances is explicit in the results of subsequent measurements. In this way, the joint result of sequences of measurements depends on the order in time in which those measurements are performed. One might expect that if the disturbance could be eliminated this time-ordering dependence would vanish. Following a recent theoretical proposal [A. Bednorz et al 2013 New J. Phys. 15 023043], we experimentally investigate this dependence for a kind of measurement that creates an arbitrarily small disturbance, weak measurement. We perform various sequences of a set of polarization weak measurements on photons. We experimentally demonstrate that, although the weak measurements are minimally disturbing, their time-ordering affects the outcome of the measurement sequence for quantum systems.

Abstract

In spite of being a well articulated proposal, the theory of quantum histories (TQH), in its different versions, suffers from certain difficulties that have been pointed out in the literature. Nevertheless, two facets of the proposal have not been sufficiently stressed. On the one hand, it is a non-collapse formalism that should be technically appropriate to supply descriptions based on quantum properties at different times. On the other hand, it intends to provide an interpretation of quantum mechanics that solves the traditional puzzles of the theory. In this article we spell out the main criticisms to TQH and classify them into two groups: theoretical and interpretive. Whereas the latter might be ignored if the TQH were considered as a quantum formalism with its minimum interpretation, the former seems to point toward technical difficulties that must be faced in a theoretically adequate proposal. Precisely with the purpose of solving these difficulties, we introduce a different perspective, called Formalism of Generalized Contexts or Formalism of Contextual Histories (FCH), which supplies a precise condition for consistently talking of quantum properties at different times without the theoretical shortcomings of the TQH.

Romero, Gustavo E. (2013) Adversus singularitates: The ontology of space-time singularities. Foundations of Science, 18. pp. 297-306. ISSN 1233-1821
Physicists revisit thought experiment proposed by Richard Feynman
Oldofredi, Andrea and Esfeld, Michael Andreas (2018) On the possibility of a realist ontological commitment in quantum mechanics. [Preprint]

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