Published March 23, 2007 | Version v1
Journal article

How far do EPR-Bell experiments constrain physical collapse theories?

  • 1. Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (United States)
  • 2. Institute for Quantum Computing, University of Waterloo, Ontario (Canada)

Description

A class of theories alternative to standard quantum mechanics, including that of Ghirardi et al ('GRWP'), postulates that when a quantum superposition becomes amplified to the point that the superposed states reach some level of 'macroscopic distinctness', then some non-quantum-mechanical principle comes into play and realizes one or other of the two macroscopic outcomes. Without specializing to any particular theory of this class, I ask how far such 'macrorealistic' theories are generically constrained, if one insists that the physical reduction process should respect Einstein locality, by the results of existing EPR-Bell experiments. I conclude that provided one does not demand that the prescription for reduction respects Lorentz invariance, at least some theories of this type, while in principle inevitably making some predictions that conflict with those of standard quantum mechanics, are not refuted by any existing experiment

Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/40/12/S15;
PII
S1751-8113(07)30031-0;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Journal of Physics. A, Mathematical and Theoretical (Online)
Journal Volume
40
Journal Issue
12
Journal Page Range
p. 3141-3149
ISSN
1751-8121

INIS

Country of Publication
United Kingdom
Country of Input or Organization
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
INIS RN
38069218
Subject category
S72: PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS;
Descriptors DEI
BELL THEOREM; EINSTEIN FIELD EQUATIONS; LOCALITY; LORENTZ INVARIANCE; QUANTUM FIELD THEORY; QUANTUM MECHANICS
Descriptors DEC
EQUATIONS; FIELD EQUATIONS; FIELD THEORIES; INVARIANCE PRINCIPLES; MECHANICS