Bell's theorem depends crucially on counterfactual reasoning, and is mistakenly interpreted as ruling out a local explanation for the correlations which can be observed between the results of measurements performed on spatially-separated quantum systems. But in fact the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics, in the Heisenberg picture, provides an alternative local explanation for such correlations. Measurement-type interactions lead, not to many worlds but, rather, to many local copies of experimental systems and the observers who measure their properties. Transformations of the Heisenberg-picture operators corresponding to the properties of these systems and observers, induced by measurement interactions, "label" each copy and provide the mechanism which, e.g., ensures that each copy of one of the observers in an EPRB or GHZM experiment will only interact with the "correct" copy of the other observer(s). The conceptual problem of nonlocality is thus replaced with a conceptual problem of proliferating labels, as correlated systems and observers undergo measurement-type interactions with newly-encountered objects and instruments; it is suggested that this problem may be resolved by considering quantum field theory rather than the quantum mechanics of particles.
Recently it has been shown that transformations of Heisenberg-picture operators are the causal mechanism which allows Bell-theorem-violating correlations at a distance to coexist with locality in the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. A calculation to first order in perturbation theory of the generation of EPRB entanglement in nonrelativistic fermionic field theory in the Heisenberg picture illustrates that the same mechanism leads to correlations without nonlocality in quantum field theory as well. An explicit transformation is given to a representation in which initial-condition in…
The existence of probability in the sense of the frequency interpretation, i.e. probability as "long term relative frequency," is shown to follow from the dynamics and the interpretational rules of Everett quantum mechanics in the Heisenberg picture. This proof is free of the difficulties encountered in applying to the Everett interpretation previous results regarding relative frequency and probability in quantum mechanics. The ontology of the Everett interpretation in the Heisenberg picture is also discussed.
Everett's relative-state construction in quantum theory has never been satisfactorily expressed in the Heisenberg picture. What one might have expected to be a straightforward process was impeded by conceptual and technical problems that we solve here. The result is a construction which, unlike Everett's one in the Schrödinger picture, makes manifest the locality of Everettian multiplicity, and its inherently approximative nature, and its origin in certain kinds of entanglement and locally inaccessible information. Our construction also allows us to give a more precise definition of an Everett…
The fact that certain "extraordinary" probabilistic phenomena--in particular, macroscopic violations of the second law of thermodynamics--have never been observed to occur can be accounted for by taking hard preclusion as a basic physical law; i.e. precluding from existence events corresponding to very small but nonzero values of quantum-mechanical weight. This approach is not consistent with the usual ontology of the Everett interpretation, in which outcomes correspond to branches of the state vector, but can be successfully implemented using a Heisenberg-picture-based ontology in which outco…
A model for measurement in collapse-free nonrelativistic fermionic quantum field theory is presented. In addition to local propagation and effectively-local interactions, the model incorporates explicit representations of localized observers, thus extending an earlier model of entanglement generation in Everett quantum field theory [M. A. Rubin, Found. Phys. 32, 1495-1523 (2002)]. Transformations of the field operators from the Heisenberg picture to the Deutsch-Hayden picture, involving fictitious auxiliary fields, establish the locality of the model. The model is applied to manifestly-local c…
The Everett-interpretation description of isolated measurements, i.e., measurements involving interaction between a measuring apparatus and a measured system but not interaction with the environment, is shown to be unambiguous, claims in the literature to the contrary notwithstanding. The appearance of ambiguity in such measurements is engendered by the fact that, in the Schroedinger picture, information on splitting into Everett copies must be inferred from the history of the combined system. In the Heisenberg picture this information is contained in mathematical quantities associated with a …
I show how the quantum paradoxes occurring when we adopt a standard realist framework (or a framework in which the collapse implies a physical change of the state of the system) vanish if we abandon the idea that a measurement is related (directly or indirectly) to a physical change of state. In Convivial Solipsism, similarly to Everett interpretation, there is no collapse of the wave function. But contrary to Everett interpretation, there is only one world. This allows also to get rid of any non-locality and to provide a solution to the Wigner friend problem and its more recent versions.
Stapp claims that, when spatial degrees of freedom are taken into account, Everett quantum mechanics is ambiguous due to a "core basis problem." To examine an aspect of this claim I generalize the ideal measurement model to include translational degrees of freedom for both the measured system and the measuring apparatus. Analysis of this generalized model using the Everett interpretation in the Heisenberg picture shows that it makes unambiguous predictions for the possible results of measurements and their respective probabilities. The presence of translational degrees of freedom for the measu…
By implicitly assuming that all measurements occur simultaneously, Bell's Theorem only applied to local theories that violated Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. By explicitly introducing time into our derivation of Bell's theorem, an extra term related to the time-ordering of actual measurements is found to augment (i.e. weaken) the upper bound of the inequality. Since the same locality assumptions hold for this rederivation as for the original, we conclude that only {\em classical} measurement-order independent local hidden variable theories are constrained by Bell's inequality; time depend…
The emergence of the generalized uncertainty principle and the existence of a non-zero minimal length are intertwined. On the other hand, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle forms the core of the EPR paradox. Subsequently, here, the implications of resorting to the generalized uncertainty principle (or equally, the minimal length) instead of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle on the quantum non-locality are investigated through focusing on the Franson experiment in which the uncertainty relation is the backbone of understanding and explaining the results.
In a previous paper [arXiv:quant-ph/9906007] Hayden and I proved, using the Heisenberg picture, that quantum physics satisfies Einstein's criterion of locality. Wallace and Timpson have argued that certain transformations of the Heisenberg- picture description of a quantum system must be regarded as leaving invariant the factual situation being described, and that taking this into account reveals that Einstein's criterion is violated after all. Here I vindicate the proof and explain some misconceptions that have led to this and other criticisms of it.
It is argued that the Heisenberg picture of standard quantum mechanics does not save Einstein locality as claimed in Deutsch and Hayden (2000). In particular, the EPR-type correlations that DH obtain by comparing two qubits in a local manner are shown to exist before that comparison. In view of this result, the local comparison argument would appear to ineffective in supporting their locality claim.
Quantum correlation of bipartite states (beyond entanglement) in presence of environment is studied for Heisenberg XYZ spin system. It is shown that if the system is allowed to exchange energy with environment, the initial state evolves and settles down to uncorrelated state in asymptotic limit. We have also demonstrated that fidelity based measurement induced non-locality is a useful quantity in characterizing correlated quantum states.
Two central concepts of quantum mechanics are Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and a subtle form of non-locality that Einstein famously called ``spooky action at a distance''. These two fundamental features have thus far been distinct concepts. Here we show that they are inextricably and quantitatively linked. Quantum mechanics cannot be more non-local with measurements that respect the uncertainty principle. In fact, the link between uncertainty and non-locality holds for all physical theories.More specifically, the degree of non-locality of any theory is determined by two factors -- the s…
Deutsch and Hayden claim to have provided an account of quantum mechanics which is particularly local, and which clarifies the nature of information transmission in entangled quantum systems. In this paper, a perspicuous description of their formalism is offered and their claim assessed. It proves essential to distinguish, as Deutsch and Hayden do not, between two ways of interpreting the formalism. On the first, conservative, interpretation, no benefits with respect to locality accrue that are not already available on either an Everettian or a statistical interpretation; and the conclusions r…
One of the formulations of Heisenberg uncertainty principle, concerning so-called measurement uncertainty, states that the measurement of one observable modifies the statistics of the other. Here, we derive such a measurement uncertainty principle from two comprehensible assumptions: impossibility of instantaneous messaging at a distance (no-signaling), and violation of Bell inequalities (non-locality). The uncertainty is established for a pair of observables of one of two spatially separated systems that exhibit non-local correlations. To this end, we introduce a gentle form of measurement wh…
Probabilistic models (developped by workers such as Boltzmann, on foundations due to pioneers such as Bayes) were commonly regarded merely as approximations to a deterministic reality before the roles were reversed by the quantum revolution (under the leadership of Heisenberg and Dirac) whereby it was the deterministic description that was reduced to the status of an approximation, while the role of the observer became particularly prominent. The concomitant problem of lack of objectivity in the original Copenhagen interpretation has not been satisfactorily resolved in newer approaches of the …
We begin by discussing ``What exists?'', i.e. ontology, in Classical Physics which provided a description of physical phenomena at the macroscopic level. The microworld however necessitates a introduction of Quantum ideas for its understanding. It is almost certain that the world is quantum mechanical at both microscopic as well as at macroscopic level. The problem of ontology of a Quantum world is a difficult one. It also depends on which interpretation is used. We first discuss some interpretations in which Quantum Mechanics does not provide a complete framework but has to be supplemented by…
One of the formulations of Heisenberg uncertainty principle, concerning so-called measurement uncertainty, states that the measurement of one observable modifies the statistics of the other. Here, we derive such a measurement uncertainty principle from two comprehensible assumptions: impossibility of instantaneous messaging at a distance (no-signaling), and violation of Bell inequalities (non-locality). The uncertainty is established for a pair of observables of one of two spatially separated systems that exhibit non-local correlations. To this end, we introduce a gentle form of measurement wh…
By implicitly assuming that all possible Bell-measurements occur simultaneously, all proofs of Bell's Theorem violate Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This assumption is made in the original form of Bell's inequality, in Wigner's probability inequalities, and in the ``nonlocality without inequalities'' arguments. The introduction of time into derivations of these variants of Bell's theorem results in extra terms related to the time order of the measurements used in constructing correlation coefficients. Since the same locality assumptions are made in the Heisenberg-compliant derivations of …
We discuss the implications of the principle of locality for interference in quantum field theory. As an example, we consider the interaction of two charges via a mediating quantum field and the resulting interference pattern, in the Lorenz gauge. Using the Heisenberg picture, we propose that detecting relative phases or entanglement between two charges in an interference experiment is equivalent to accessing empirically the gauge degrees of freedom associated with the so-called ghost (scalar) modes of the field in the Lorenz gauge. These results imply that ghost modes are measurable and hence…
It has been more than 20 years since Deutsch and Hayden proved the locality of quantum theory, using the Heisenberg picture of quantum computational networks. Of course, locality holds even in the face of entanglement and Bell's theorem. Today, most researchers in quantum foundations are still convinced not only that a local description of quantum systems has not yet been provided, but that it cannot exist. The main goal of this paper is to address this misconception by re-explaining the descriptor formalism in a hopefully accessible and self-contained way. It is a step-by-step guide to how an…
It is well known that the notions of spatial locality are often lost in quantum systems with long-range interactions, as exhibited by the emergence of phases with exotic long-range order and faster propagation of quantum correlations. We demonstrate here that such induced ``quasinonlocal" effects do not necessarily translate to growth of global entanglement in the quantum system. By investigating the ground and quenched states of the variable-range, spin-1/2 Heisenberg Hamiltonian, we observe that the genuine multiparty entanglement in the system can either increase or counterintuitively dimin…
Bell non-locality represents the ultimate consequence of quantum entanglement, fundamentally undermining the classical tenet that spatially-separated degrees of freedom possess objective attributes independently of the act of their measurement. Despite its importance, probing Bell non-locality in many-body systems is considered to be a formidable challenge, with a computational cost scaling exponentially with system size. Here we propose and validate an efficient variational scheme, based on the solution of inverse classical Ising problems, which in polynomial time can probe whether an arbitra…
We consider an interaction quench in the critical spin-1/2 Heisenberg XXZ chain. We numerically compute the time evolution of the two-point correlation functions of spin operators in the thermodynamic limit and compare the results to predictions obtained in the framework of the Luttinger liquid approximation. We find that the transverse correlation function $\langle S^x_jS^x_{j+\ell}\rangle$ agrees with the Luttinger model prediction to a surprising level of accuracy. The agreement for the longitudinal two-point function $\langle S^z_jS^z_{j+\ell}\rangle$ is found to be much poorer. We specula…
We present a short, general and accessible introduction to quantizing gravity in the Heisenberg picture. We then apply this formalism to the scenario where two spatially superposed masses interact through the gravitational field. We discuss some of the consequences for quantum gravity including the spin of the graviton, the notions of locality and causality, as well as going beyond the linear regime. We use the Schwinger action principle and the Heisenberg representation which we believe make the issues involved clearer. We conclude by commenting on a number of traditionally discussed apparent…
The problem of measurement is often considered as an inconsistency inside the quantum formalism. Many attempts to solve (or to dissolve) it have been made since the inception of quantum mechanics. The form of these attempts depends on the philosophical position that their authors endorse. I will review some of them and analyze their relevance. The phenomenon of decoherence is often presented as a solution lying inside the pure quantum formalism and not demanding any particular philosophical assumption. Nevertheless, a widely debated question is to decide between two different interpretations. …
Quantum-optical techniques allow for generating controllable spin-spin interactions between ions, making trapped ions an ideal quantum simulator of Heisenberg chains. A single parameter, the detuning of the Raman coupling, allows to switch between ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic chains, and to modify the range of the interactions. On the antiferromagnetic side, the system can be tuned from an extreme long-range limit, in which any pair of ions interacts with almost equal strength, to interactions with a $1/r^3$ decay. By exact diagonalization, we study how a system of up to 20 ions behaves…
QDN (quantized detector networks) is a description of quantum processes in which the principal focus is on observers and their apparatus, rather than on states of SUOs (systems under observation). It is a realization of Heisenberg's original instrumentalist approach to quantum physics and can deal with time dependent apparatus, multiple observers and inter-frame physics. QDN is most naturally expressed in the mathematical language of quantum computation, a language ideally suited to describe quantum experiments as processes of information exchange between observers and their apparatus. Example…
Lieb-Robinson bounds show that the speed of propagation of information under the Heisenberg dynamics in a wide class of non-relativistic quantum lattice systems is essentially bounded. We review work of the past dozen years that has turned this fundamental result into a powerful tool for analyzing quantum lattice systems. We introduce a unified framework for a wide range of applications by studying quasi-locality properties of general classes of maps defined on the algebra of local observables of quantum lattice systems. We also consider a number of generalizations that include systems with an…
We use a new distinctly "geometrical" interpretation of non-relativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) to argue for the fundamentality of the 4D blockworld ontology. Our interpretation rests on two formal results: Kaiser, Bohr & Ulfbeck and Anandan showed independently that the Heisenberg commutation relations of NRQM follow from the relativity of simultaneity (RoS) per the Poincare Lie algebra, and Bohr, Ulfbeck & Mottelson showed that the density matrix for a particular NRQM experimental outcome may be obtained from the spacetime symmetry group of the experimental configuration. Together these fo…
About twenty years ago, we proposed the mathematical formulation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and further, we concluded that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and EPR-paradox are not contradictory. This is true, however we now think that we should have argued about it under a certain firm interpretation of quantum mechanics. Recently we proposed the linguistic quantum interpretation (called quantum and classical measurement theory), which was characterized as a kind of metaphysical and linguistic turn of the Copenhagen interpretation. This turn from physics to language does not only…
We propose an extension of Quantum Mechanics based on the idea that the underlying "quantum noise" has a non-zero, albeit very small, correlation time $τ_c$. The standard (non-relativistic) Schrodinger equation is recovered to zeroth order in $τ_c$, and the first correction to energy levels is computed. Some consequences are discussed, in particular the violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the restoration of locality at short times.
Quantum non-locality tests have been of interest since the 1960's paper by Bell on the original EPR paradox.The present paper discusses whether the CGLMP (Bell) inequalities are possible tests for showing that quantum theory is not underpinned by local hidden variable theory (LHVT). It is found by applying Fine's theorem that the CGLMP approach involves a LHVT for the joint probabilities associated with the measurement of one observable from each of the two sub-systems, even though the underlying probabilities for joint measurements of all four observables may involve a non-local HVT. The latt…
A particle is described as a non-spreading wave packet satisfying a linear equation within the framework of special relativity. Young's and other interference experiments are explained with a hypothesis that there is a coupling interaction between the peaked and non-peaked pieces of the wave packet. This explanation of the interference experiments provides a realistic interpretation of quantum mechanics. The interpretation implies that there is physical reality of particles and no wave function collapse. It also implies that neither classical mechanics nor current quantum mechanics is a comple…
Thermalization of chaotic quantum many-body systems under unitary time evolution is related to the growth in complexity of initially simple Heisenberg operators. Operator growth is a manifestation of information scrambling and can be diagnosed by out-of-time-order correlators (OTOCs). However, the behavior of OTOCs of local operators in generic chaotic local Hamiltonians remains poorly understood, with some semiclassical and large N models exhibiting exponential growth of OTOCs and a sharp chaos wavefront and other random circuit models showing a diffusively broadened wavefront. In this paper …
We review recent progress in understanding the notion of locality in integrable quantum lattice systems. The central concept are the so-called quasilocal conserved quantities, which go beyond the standard perception of locality. Two systematic procedures to rigorously construct families of quasilocal conserved operators based on quantum transfer matrices are outlined, specializing on anisotropic Heisenberg XXZ spin-1/2 chain. Quasilocal conserved operators stem from two distinct classes of representations of the auxiliary space algebra, comprised of unitary (compact) representations, which can…
We elaborate on a new interpretation of quantum mechanics which we introduced recently. The main hypothesis of this new interpretation is that quantum particles are entities interacting with matter conceptually, which means that pieces of matter function as interfaces for the conceptual content carried by the quantum particles. We explain how our interpretation was inspired by our earlier analysis of non-locality as non-spatiality and a specific interpretation of quantum potentiality, which we illustrate by means of the example of two interconnected vessels of water. We show by means of this e…
We put forward a possible new interpretation and explanatory framework for quantum theory. The basic hypothesis underlying this new framework is that quantum particles are conceptual entities. More concretely, we propose that quantum particles interact with ordinary matter, nuclei, atoms, molecules, macroscopic material entities, measuring apparatuses, ..., in a similar way to how human concepts interact with memory structures, human minds or artificial memories. We analyze the most characteristic aspects of quantum theory, i.e. entanglement and non-locality, interference and superposition, id…
We put forward an interpretation of scalar quantum field theory as relativistic quantum mechanics by curing well known problems related to locality. A probabilistic interpretation of quantum field theory similar to quantum mechanics is difficult if particle localization is defined using the Newton-Wigner position operator as it is non-local and non-covariant. An alternative bilinear covariant position operator is discussed which incorporates a time operator that can be exponentiated to a unitary operator. Moreover, it satisfies an algebra that unifies special relativity and quantum mechanics a…
Energy in a multipartite quantum system appears from an operational perspective to be distributed to some extent non-locally because of correlations extant among the system's components. This non-locality allows users to transfer, in effect, locally accessible energy between sites of different system components by LOCC (local operations and classical communication). Quantum energy teleportation is a three-step LOCC protocol, accomplished without an external energy carrier, for effectively transferring energy between two physically separated, but correlated, sites. We apply this LOCC teleportat…
In quantum mechanics, systems can be described in phase space in terms of the Wigner function and the star-product operation. Quantum characteristics, which appear in the Heisenberg picture as the Weyl's symbols of operators of canonical coordinates and momenta, can be used to solve the evolution equations for symbols of other operators acting in the Hilbert space. To any fixed order in the Planck's constant, many-body potential scattering problem simplifies to a statistical-mechanical problem of computing an ensemble of quantum characteristics and their derivatives with respect to the initial…
