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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 5: Foundations of Quantum Theory

AGPhil 5.1: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 28. März 2012, 11:30–12:00, H 2033

Quantum locality with and without consistent histories — •Helmut Fink — Inst. f. Theoretische Physik I, Univ. Erlangen-Nbg.

The nature of EPR-like “quantum nonlocality” is one of the topics that every interpretation of quantum theory must deal with. There is still no consensus on what is actually implied by the violation of Bell-type inequalities. For sure, there are no local hidden variables. But is it locality or is it realism that has to be abandoned (or weakened) in the quantum domain?

In a recent article (R. B. Griffiths: Found. Phys. 41, 705-733, 2011), Bob Griffiths argues lucidly and instructively for Einstein locality as a valid quantum principle. According to his consistent-histories based analysis, objective properties of individual quantum systems do not change when something is done to another noninteracting system. He identifies only quantum incompatibility as the main difference between quantum and classical physics.

However, the consistent-histories approach can itself be criticized for not (uniquely) representing elements of physical reality such as measurement outcomes or pointer positions. In order to reveal artefacts of the histories interpretation, we try to reconstruct Griffiths’ conclusions from a Neo-Copenhagen perspective. Most of his conclusions survive this test of “interpretation invariance”, but there is an essential difference between the two interpretations in the nature and relevance of state-collapse.