Current Science

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access

Testing the Limits of Quantum Mechanics


Affiliations
1 Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400 005, India
 

The physics underlying non-relativistic quantum mechanics can be summed up in two postulates. Postulate 1 is very precise, and mentions that the wave function of a quantum system evolves according to the Schrödinger equation, which is a linear and deterministic equation. Postulate 2 has an entirely different flavour, and can be roughly stated as follows: ‘when the quantum system interacts with a classical measuring apparatus, its wave function collapses – from being in a superposition of the eigenstates of the measured observable to being in just one of the eigenstates’. The outcome of the measurement is random and cannot be predicted; the quantum system collapses to one or the other eigenstates, with a probability that is proportional to the squared modulus of the wave function for that eigenstate. This is the Born probability rule.
User
Notifications
Font Size

  • Weinberg, S., The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics, N. Y. Review of Books, 2017.

  • Leggett, A. J., J. Phys. Cond. Mat., 2002, 14, R415.

  • Ghirardi, G., Rimini, A., and Weber, T., Phys. Rev., 1986, D34, 470.

  • Ghirardi, G., Pearle, P. and Rimini, A., Phys. Rev., 1990, A42, 78.

  • Adler, S. L. and Bassi, A., Science, 2009, 325, 275.

  • Bassi, A., Lochan, K., Satin, S., Singh, T. P. and Ulbricht, H., Rev. Mod. Phys., 2013, 85, 471.

  • Pearle, P. and Squires, E., Phys. Rev. Lett., 1994, 73, 1.

  • Adler, S. L. and Vinante, A., Phys. Rev., 2018, A97, 052119.

  • Arndt, M., Nairz, O., Vos-Andreae, J., Keller, C., Van der Zouw, G. and Zeilinger, A., Nature, 1999, 401, 6754.

  • Arndt, M. and Hornberger, K., Nature Phys., 2014, 10, 271.

  • Hornberger, K., et al., Rev. Mod. Phys., 2011, 84, 157.

  • Adler, S. L., J. Phys., 2007, A40, 2935.

  • Carlesso, M., Bassi, A., Falferi, P. and Vinante, A., Phys. Rev., 2016, D94, 124036.

  • Curceanu, C., Hiesmayr, B. C. and Piscicchia, K., J. Adv. Phys., 2015, 4, 263.

  • Carlesso, M., Ferialdi, L. and Bassi, A., Eur. Phys. J., 2018, D72, 159.

  • Bera, S., Motwani, B., Singh, T. P. and Ulbricht, H., Sci. Rep., 2015, 5, 7664.

  • Vinante, A., et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 2017, 119, 110401.

  • Mishra, R., Vinante, A. and Singh, T. P., Testing spontaneous collapse through bulk heating experiments, arXiv:1807. 03067.

  • Singh, T. P., The problem of time and the problem of quantum measurement, arXiv:1210.8110.

  • Singh, T. P., Zeitschrift fur Naturforschung, 2018, A73, 923; arXiv: 1806.01297.


Abstract Views: 246

PDF Views: 71




  • Testing the Limits of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract Views: 246  |  PDF Views: 71

Authors

Tejinder Pal Singh
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Mumbai 400 005, India

Abstract


The physics underlying non-relativistic quantum mechanics can be summed up in two postulates. Postulate 1 is very precise, and mentions that the wave function of a quantum system evolves according to the Schrödinger equation, which is a linear and deterministic equation. Postulate 2 has an entirely different flavour, and can be roughly stated as follows: ‘when the quantum system interacts with a classical measuring apparatus, its wave function collapses – from being in a superposition of the eigenstates of the measured observable to being in just one of the eigenstates’. The outcome of the measurement is random and cannot be predicted; the quantum system collapses to one or the other eigenstates, with a probability that is proportional to the squared modulus of the wave function for that eigenstate. This is the Born probability rule.

References





DOI: https://doi.org/10.18520/cs%2Fv115%2Fi9%2F1641-1643