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arXiv:1810.01080

Comments on "Quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself"

Chen, Liang, Ye-Qi Zhang

Published Oct 2, 2018• 1 citation
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Recently, a delicately designed Gedankenexperiment was proposed to check the self-consistence of quantum theory in the description of the agents who are using this theory. It was demonstrated that the quantum theory is inconsistent. Here a critical improvement is presented, which can lead to a consistent explanation of the Gedankenexperiment by using quantum theory.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.1810.01080

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Recently, a delicately designed Gedankenexperiment was proposed to check the self-consistence of quantum theory in the description of the agents who are using this theory. It was demonstrated that the quantum theory is inconsistent. Here a critical improvement is presented, which can lead to a consistent explanation of the Gedankenexperiment by using quantum theory.
In a recent publication in Nature Communications by Frauchiger and Renner (Nat. Commun. 9, 3711 (2018)), a Gedankenexperiment was proposed, which was claimed to be able to lead to inconsistent conclusions with a self-referential use of quantum theory. Thus it seems to prove that quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself. Shortly after, Chen and Zhang suggested an improvement (arXiv:1810.01080) which can made the explanation of the Gedankenexperiment become consistent. Here we show that from the viewpoint of any quantum interpretation theory which agrees that there is collapse of the wavefunction when being measured (e.g., the Copenhagen interpretation), the original conclusions of Frauchiger and Renner actually came from an incorrect description of some quantum states. With the correct description there will be no inconsistent results, even without modifying the original Gedankenexperiment.
Quantum theory provides an extremely accurate description of fundamental processes in physics. It thus seems likely that the theory is applicable beyond the, mostly microscopic, domain in which it has been tested experimentally. Here, we propose a Gedankenexperiment to investigate the question whether quantum theory can, in principle, have universal validity. The idea is that, if the answer was yes, it must be possible to employ quantum theory to model complex systems that include agents who are themselves using quantum theory. Analysing the experiment under this presumption, we find that one agent, upon observing a particular measurement outcome, must conclude that another agent has predicted the opposite outcome with certainty. The agents' conclusions, although all derived within quantum theory, are thus inconsistent. This indicates that quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems, at least not in a straightforward manner.
Predictions of quantum theory have been confirmed experimentally in the microscopic domain with no known exceptions. This success motivates physicists to assume universal validity of the theory. To put the predictions of the quantum theory to the test in the domain of more complex systems researchers like e.g. Eugene Wigner have proposed carefully designed Gedankenexperiments revealing unexpected difficulties of the theory. Daniela Frauchiger and Renato Renner have recently suggested an extension of the Gedankenexperiment commonly known as Wigner's friend and arrived at a conclusion that one agent, upon observing a particular measurement outcome, must conclude that another agent has predicted the opposite outcome with certainty. Their analysis shows that quantum theory cannot consistently describe the use of itself. Here, we will study the mentioned Gedankenexperiments and introduce an approach leading to consistent predictions of quantum theory, independent of observer using the theory.
Abstract Quantum theory provides an extremely accurate description of fundamental processes in physics. It thus seems likely that the theory is applicable beyond the, mostly microscopic, domain in which it has been tested experimentally. Here, we propose a Gedankenexperiment to investigate the question whether quantum theory can, in principle, have universal validity. The idea is that, if the answer was yes, it must be possible to employ quantum theory to model complex systems that include agents who are themselves using quantum theory. Analysing the experiment under this presumption, we find that one agent, upon observing a particular measurement outcome, must conclude that another agent has predicted the opposite outcome with certainty. The agents’ conclusions, although all derived within quantum theory, are thus inconsistent. This indicates that quantum theory cannot be extrapolated to complex systems, at least not in a straightforward manner.
Measurements have historically presented a problem for the consistent description of quantum theories, be it in non-relativistic quantum mechanics or in quantum field theory. Drawing on a recent surge of interest in the description of measurements in Algebraic Quantum Field theory, it was decided that this dissertation would be focused on trying to close the gap between the description of measurements proposed by K. Hepp in the 70's, considering decoherence of states in quasilocal algebras and the new framework of generally covariant measurement schemes proposed recently by C. Fewster and R. Verch. Another recent result that we shall also consider is the Frauchinger-Renner Gedankenexperiment, that has taken inspiration on Hepp's article about decoherence based measurements to arrive at a no-go result about the consistency of quantum descriptions of systems containing rational agents, we shall seek to provide a closure for the interpretation of this result. In doing so we naturally arrive at the study of the contextual properties of measurement setups.