Events in quantum mechanics are maximally non-absolute

The notorious quantum measurement problem brings out the difficulty to reconcile two quantum postulates: the unitary evolution of closed quantum systems and the wave-function collapse after a measurement. This problematics is particularly highlighted in the Wigner's friend thought experiment, w...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: George Moreno, Ranieri Nery, Cristhiano Duarte, Rafael Chaves
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Verein zur Förderung des Open Access Publizierens in den Quantenwissenschaften 2022-08-01
Series:Quantum
Online Access:https://quantum-journal.org/papers/q-2022-08-24-785/pdf/
Description
Summary:The notorious quantum measurement problem brings out the difficulty to reconcile two quantum postulates: the unitary evolution of closed quantum systems and the wave-function collapse after a measurement. This problematics is particularly highlighted in the Wigner's friend thought experiment, where the mismatch between unitary evolution and measurement collapse leads to conflicting quantum descriptions for different observers. A recent no-go theorem has established that the (quantum) statistics arising from an extended Wigner's friend scenario is incompatible when one try to hold together three innocuous assumptions, namely no-superdeterminism, parameter independence and absoluteness of observed events. Building on this extended scenario, we introduce two novel measures of non-absoluteness of events. The first is based on the EPR2 decomposition, and the second involves the relaxation of the absoluteness hypothesis assumed in the aforementioned no-go theorem. To prove that quantum correlations can be maximally non-absolute according to both quantifiers, we show that chained Bell inequalities (and relaxations thereof) are also valid constraints for Wigner's experiment.
ISSN:2521-327X