Several recent arguments purport to show that there can be no relativistic, quantum-mechanical theory of localizable particles and, thus, that relativity and quantum mechanics can be reconciled only in the context of quantum field theory. We point out some loopholes in the existing arguments, and we provide two no-go theorems to close these loopholes. However, even with these loopholes closed, it does not yet follow that relativity plus quantum mechanics exclusively requires a field ontology, since relativistic quantum field theory itself might permit an ontology of localizable particles supervenient on the fundamental fields. Thus, we provide another no-go theorem to rule out this possibility. Finally, we allay potential worries about this conclusion by arguing that relativistic quantum field theory can nevertheless explain the possibility of "particle detections," as well as the pragmatic utility of "particle talk."
The impossibility of an indeterministic evolution for standard relativistic quantum field theories, that is, theories in which all fields satisfy the condition that the generators of spacetime translation have spectrum in the forward light-cone, is demonstrated. The demonstration proceeds by arguing that a relativistically invariant theory must have a stable vacuum, and then showing that stability of the vacuum, together with the requirements imposed by relativistic causality, entails deterministic evolution, if all degrees of freedom are standard degrees of freedom.
We propose a reformulation of quantum field theory (QFT) as a relativistic statistical field theory. This rewriting embeds a collapse model within an interacting QFT and thus provides a possible solution to the measurement problem. Additionally, it relaxes structural constraints on standard QFTs and hence might open the way to future mathematically rigorous constructions as well as new numerical methods. Finally, because it shows that collapse models can be hidden within QFTs, this article calls for a reconsideration of the dynamical program, as a possible underpinning rather than as a modific…
Bell appealed to the theory of relativity in formulating his principle of local causality. But he maintained that quantum field theories do not conform to that principle, even when their field equations are relativistically covariant and their observable algebras satisfy a relativistically motivated microcausality condition. A pragmatist view of quantum theory and an interventionist approach to causation prompt the reevaluation of local causality and microcausality. Local causality cannot be understood as a reasonable requirement on relativistic quantum field theories: it is unmotivated even i…
The relational version of the modal interpretation offers both a consistent quantum ontology and solution for quantum paradoxes within the framework of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. In the present paper this approach is generalized for the case of relativistic quantum field theories. Physical systems are defined as Hilbert spaces. The concept of the reduced density matrix is also generalized so that its trace may become smaller than one, expressing the possibility of annihilation. Superselection rules are shown to follow if the whole Universe has a definite electric charge, barionic numbe…
In order to avoid the difficulties encountered by relativistic quantum theory of single particles, we pursue a deductive development of the theory from physical principles, without canonical quantization, by making use of group-theoretical methods. Our work has pointed out the necessity of new classes of irreducible representations of the Poincaré group the quantum theory of a particle can be based on. For spin 0 particle, four inequivalent theories are completely determined, with fundamental differences with respect to Klein-Gordon theory.
The symmetries of the wavefunction for identical particles, including anyons, are given a rigorous non-relativistic derivation within pilot-wave formulations of quantum mechanics. In particular, parastatistics are excluded. The result has a rigorous generalisation to n particles and to spinorial wavefunctions. The relation to other non-relativistic approaches is briefly discussed.
This chapter, from the Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Physics (Eleanor Knox and Alastair Wilson, eds., 2021), is an overview of the constraints that relativity places on interpretations of quantum theory. It focuses on four main avenues of approach: (i) additional beables theories, which include "hidden-variables" theories and modal interpretations, (ii) dynamical collapse theories, (iii) Everettian, or "many-worlds" interpretations, and (iv) non-realist interpretations, which deny that quantum states represent anything in physical reality independent of considerations of agents and …
A crucial task for secure communication networks is to determine the minimum of physical requirements to certify a cryptographic protocol. A widely accepted candidate for certification is the principle of relativistic causality which is equivalent to the disallowance of causal loops. Contrary to expectations, we demonstrate how correlations allowed by relativistic causality could be exploited to break security for a broad class of multi-party protocols (all modern protocols belong to this class). As we show, deep roots of this dramatic lack of security lies in the fact that unlike in previous …
The diffculties of relativistic particle theories formulated my means of canonical quantization, such as Klein-Gordon and Dirac theories, ultimately led theoretical physicists to turn on quantum field theory to model elementary particle physics. The aim of the present work is to pursue a method alternative to canonical quantization that avoids these dfficulties. In order to guarantee this result, the present approach is constrained to be developed deductively from physical principles. The physical principles assumed for a free particle consist of the symmetry properties of the particle with re…
Though the irreducible representations of the Poincare' group form the groundwork for the formulation of relativistic quantum theories of a particle, robust classes of such representations are missed in current formulations of these theories. In this work the extended class of irreducible representations with positive `mass' parameter is explicitly determined. Several new representations in such extension, so far excluded, give rise to consistent theories for Klein-Gordon particles and also to new species of particle theories.
The quon algebra describes particles, ``quons,'' that are neither fermions nor bosons using a label q that parametrizes a smooth interpolation between bosons (q = +1) and fermions (q = -1). We derive ``conservation of statistics'' relations for quons in relativistic theories, and show that in relativistic theories quons must be either bosons or fermions.
In this work a general relativistic generalization of Bell inequality is suggested. Namely,it is proved that practically in any general relativistic metric there is a generalization of Bell inequality.It can be satisfied within theories of local (subluminal) hidden variables, but it cannot be satisfied in the general case within standard quantum mechanical formalism or within theories of nonlocal (superluminal) hidden variables. It is shown too that within theories of nonlocal hidden variables but not in the standard quantum mechanical formalism a paradox appears in the situation when one of t…
We present a continuous tensor-network construction for the states of quantum fields called cPEPS (continuous projected entangled pair state), which enjoys the same spatial and global symmetries of ground-states of relativistic field theories. We explicitly show how such a state can approximate and eventually converge to the free field theory vacuum and suggest a regularization-independent way of estimating the convergence via a universal term in the fidelity per-site. We also present a detailed bottom-up construction of the cPEPS as the continuum limit of the conventional lattice Projected En…
We calculate entanglement entropy in a non-relativistic field theory described by the Schrödinger operator. We demonstrate that the entropy is characterized by i) the area law and ii) UV divergences that are identical to those in the relativistic field theory. These observations are further supported by a holographic consideration. We use the non-relativistic symmetry and completely specify entanglement entropy in large class of non-relativistic theories described by the field operators polynomial in derivatives. We suggest that the area law of the entropy can be tested in experiments with con…
In the context of non-relativistic quantum field theory, a method is proposed for multiplying field operators at the same spatial point and obtaining regular (i.e. rigorously defined) interaction terms for the Hamiltonian. The basic idea is to modify the Lebesgue measure of configuration space of many particles by adding singular measures over the subspaces of configuration space in which the positions of two or more particles coincide.
The nonrelativistic reduction of the self-consistent covariant density functional theory is realized for the first time with the similarity renormalization group (SRG) method. The reduced nonrelativistic Hamiltonian and densities are calculated by solving the corresponding flow equations with a novel expansion in terms of the inverse of the Dirac effective mass. The efficiency and accuracy of this newly proposed framework have been demonstrated for several typical spherical nuclei. It is found that the exact solutions of the total energies, traces of vector and scalar densities, and the root-m…
We present a proposal for a versatile cold-atom-based quantum simulator of relativistic fermionic theories and topological insulators in arbitrary dimensions. The setup consists of a spin-independent optical lattice that traps a collection of hyperfine states of the same alkaline atom, to which the different degrees of freedom of the field theory to be simulated are then mapped. We show that the combination of bi-chromatic optical lattices with Raman transitions can allow the engineering of a spin-dependent tunneling of the atoms between neighboring lattice sites. These assisted-hopping proces…
It was shown recently that stochastic quantization can be made into a well defined quantization scheme on (pseudo-)Riemannian manifolds using second order differential geometry, which is an extension of the commonly used first order differential geometry. In this letter, we show that restrictions to relativistic theories can be obtained from this theory by imposing a stochastic energy-momentum relation. In the process, we derive non-perturbative quantum corrections to the line element as measured by scalar particles. Furthermore, we extend the framework of stochastic quantization to massless s…
Causality imposes strong restrictions on the type of operators that may be observables in relativistic quantum theories. In fact, causal violations arise when computing conditional probabilities for certain partial causally connected measurements using the standard non covariant procedure. Here we introduce another way of computing conditional probabilities, based on an intrinsic covariant relational order of the events, which differs from the standard one when these type of measurements are included. This alternative procedure is compatible with a wider and very natural class of operators wit…
Entanglement generation by Newtonian gravitational potential between objects has been widely discussed to reveal the quantum nature of gravity. In this paper, we perform a quantum field theoretical analysis of a slightly modified version of the gedanken experiment by Mari and co-workers. We show that decoherence due to the presence of a detector propagates with the speed of light in terms of a retarded Green's function, as it should be consistent with causality of relativistic field theories. The quantum nature of fields, such as quantum fluctuations or emission of gravitons expressed in terms…
We demonstrate that Dirac fermions self-interacting or coupled to dynamic scalar fields can emerge in the low energy sector of designed bosonic and fermionic cold atom systems. We illustrate this with two examples defined in two spacetime dimensions. The first one is the self-interacting Thirring model. The second one is a model of Dirac fermions coupled to a dynamic scalar field that gives rise to the Gross-Neveu model. The proposed cold atom experiments can be used to probe spectral or correlation properties of interacting quantum field theories thereby presenting an alternative to lattice g…
One of the most well known relativistic field theory models is the Thirring model (TM). Its realization can demonstrate the famous prediction for the renormalization of mass due to interactions. However, experimental verification of the latter requires complex accelerator experiments whereas analytical solutions of the model can be extremely cumbersome to obtain. In this work, following Feynman's original proposal, we propose a alternative quantum system as a simulator of the TM dynamics. Here the relativistic particles are mimicked, counter-intuitively, by polarized photons in a quantum nonli…
To develop a unitary quantum theory with probabilistic description for pseudo- Hermitian systems one needs to consider the theories in a different Hilbert space endowed with a positive definite metric operator. There are different approaches to find such metric operators. We compare the different approaches of calculating pos- itive definite metric operators in pseudo-Hermitian theories with the help of several explicit examples in non-relativistic as well as in relativistic situations. Exceptional points and spontaneous symmetry breaking are also discussed in these models.
