The problem of objectivity, i.e. how to explain on quantum grounds the objective character of the macroscopic world, is one of the aspects of the celebrated quantum-to-classical transition. Initiated by W. H. Zurek and collaborators, this problem gained some attention recently with several approaches being developed. The aim of this work is to compare three of them: quantum Darwinism, Spectrum Broadcast Structures, and strong quantum Darwinism. The paper is concentrated on foundations, providing a synthetic analysis of how the three approaches realize the idea of objectivity and how they are related to each other. As a byproduct of this analysis, a proof of a generalized Spectrum Broadcast Structure theorem is presented. Recent quantum Darwinism experiments are also briefly discussed.
The problem of objectivity, i.e. how to explain on quantum grounds the objective character of the macroscopic world, is one of the aspects of the celebrated quantum-to-classical transition. Initiated by W. H. Zurek and collaborators, this problem gained some attention recently with several approaches being developed. The aim of this work is to compare three of them: quantum Darwinism, Spectrum Broadcast Structures, and strong quantum Darwinism. The paper is concentrated on foundations, providing a synthetic analysis of how the three approaches realize the idea of objectivity and how they are related to each other. As a byproduct of this analysis, a proof of a generalized Spectrum Broadcast Structure theorem is presented. Recent quantum Darwinism experiments are also briefly discussed.
The problem of objectivity, i.e. how to explain on quantum grounds the objective character of the macroscopic world, is one of the aspects of the celebrated quantum-to-classical transition. Initiated by W. H. Zurek and collaborators, this problem gained some attention recently with several approaches being developed. The aim of this paper is to compare three of them: quantum Darwinism, Spectrum Broadcast Structures, and strong quantum Darwinism. I will concentrate solely on foundations, analyzing how the three approaches realize the idea of objectivity and how they are related to each other. I will also briefly comment on the recent quantum Darwinism experiments.
How the objective everyday world emerges from the underlying quantum behavior of its microscopic constituents is an open question at the heart of the foundations of quantum mechanics. Quantum Darwinism and spectrum broadcast structure are two different frameworks providing key insight into this question. Recent works, however, indicate these two frameworks can lead to conflicting predictions on the objectivity of the state of a system interacting with an environment. Here, we provide a resolution to this issue by defining strong quantum Darwinism and proving that it is equivalent to spectrum broadcast structure when combined with strong independence of the subenvironments. We further show that strong quantum Darwinism is sufficient and necessary to signal state objectivity without the requirement of strong independence. Our Letter unveils the deep connection between strong quantum Darwinism and spectrum broadcast structure, thereby making fundamental progress toward understanding and solving the emergence of classicality from the quantum world. Together they provide us a sharper understanding of the transition in terms of state structure, geometry, and quantum and classical information.
Quantum mechanics is one of the most successful theories, correctly predicting huge class of physical phenomena. Ironically, in spite of all its successes, there is a notorious problem: how does Nature create a ''bridge'' from fragile quanta to the robust, objective world of everyday experience? It is now commonly accepted that the most promising approach is the Decoherence Theory, based on the system-environment paradigm. To explain the observed redundancy and objectivity of information in the classical realm, Zurek proposed to divide the environment into independent fractions and argued that each of them carries a nearly complete classical information about the system. This Quantum Darwinism model has nevertheless some serious drawbacks: i) the entropic information redundancy is motivated by a priori purely classical reasoning; ii) there is no answer to the basic question: what physical process makes the transition from quantum description to classical objectivity possible? Here we prove that the necessary and sufficient condition for objective existence of a state is the spectrum broadcasting process, which, in particular, implies Quantum Darwinism. We first show it in general, using multiple environments paradigm, a suitable definition of objectivity, and Bohr's notion of non-disturbance, and then on the emblematic example for Decoherence Theory: a dielectric sphere illuminated by photons. We also apply Perron-Frobenius Theorem to show a faithful, ''decoherence-free'' form of broadcasting. We suggest that the spectrum broadcasting might be one of the foundational properties of Nature, which opens a ''window'' for life processes.
Quantum mechanics describes the smallest systems, whilst classical physics describes macroscopic scales. However, the quantum-to-classical transition is a major unsolved problem. In this thesis, we develop further understanding of the transition through the concept of objectivity. The objects we perceive in our everyday world are objective: they exist regardless of observation, and their properties are independent of observers. This is because information about everyday objects came be found, for example, in the surrounding photon environment. Quantum Darwinism is a conceptual and theoretical framework that describes the emergence of objectivity. The “Darwinistic” part refers to how certain types of information tends to spread at the expense of others. The thesis addresses the quantitative description of objectivity, the dynamics of emergent objectivity, and the analysis of non-objectivity in experimental and biology-inspired systems. Firstly, we propose two new mathematical frameworks to describe objectivity, Strong Quantum Darwinism and invariant spectrum broadcast structure. Then we unite them with the pre-existing frameworks, Zurek's Quantum Darwinism and spectrum broadcast structure, by identifying their deep connections and differences. These conditions highlight how Each framework considers varying amounts of objectivity in the system and environments and together, they create a hierarchy of objectivity. We then analyse objectivity in a scenario where system-environment interactions are strong and non-Markovian, highlighting some practical differences between the Quantum Darwinism frameworks. Next, we describe the quantum channels that create objective states, leading us to discuss the contribution of non-Markovianity to the emergence of objectivity. Then, we introduce a witnessing scheme that simplifies the detection of non-objectivity to promote further experimental testing of Quantum Darwinism with larger environments. Finally, we examine the contribution of quantum coherence and non-objectivity to the performance of a biological-inspired quantum magnetic sensor that operates close to the quantum-classical boundary. We find that the sensor operates in a non-objective regime, and that quantum coherence is necessary for the sensor's performance. The quantum-to-classical transition is a longstanding open question: these findings deepen our knowledge of how objectivity emerges, and contributes to and the types of interactions that keep systems quantum, which is relevant for understanding quantum biological systems and exploiting environment effects in novel quantum technologies. While the quantum-to-classical transition remains unsolved, Quantum Darwinism and its frameworks contribute to the understanding of emergent objectivity and have much potential to further explore aspects of the transition within the structure of quantum mechanics.
This paper examines the role of Quantum Darwinism in explaining the emergence of classical objectivity within The Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Decoherence explains why macroscopically distinct alternatives become practically inaccessible to local observers, but it does not by itself explain why multiple observers can independently agree on the same classical state. Quantum Darwinism strengthens this account by describing how information about stable pointer states becomes redundantly encoded in environmental fragments. However, this paper argues that redundancy is necessary for objectivity but not enough to explain objectivity. A simple qubit test model implemented in Qiskit is used to demonstrate redundant environmental coding. The discussion connects this claim to Strong Quantum Darwinism, Spectrum Broadcast Structure, and Quantum Discord, which sharpen the distinction between mere correlation and objective classical records. Finally, this paper proposes phase anti-redundancy as a future direction; While pointer state information becomes locally redundant, cross-branch phase information appears to remain globally encoded and increasingly difficult to recover. This suggests that branch objectivity may require not only redundant classical records, but also the fact that cross-branch phase information is encoded in global correlations rather than in locally accessible environmental fragments.
Abstract Quantum Darwinism is a compelling theory that describes the quantum-to classical transition as the emergence of objectivity of quantum systems. Spectrum broadcast structure and strong quantum Darwinism are two extensions of this theory with emphasis on state structure and information respectively. The complete experimental verification of these three frameworks, however, requires quantum state tomography over both the system and accessible environments, thus limiting the feasibility and scalability of experimental tests. Here, we introduce a subspace-dependent objectivity operation and construct a witness that detects non-objectivity by comparing the dynamics of the system-environment state with and without the objectivity operation. We then propose a photonic experimental simulation that implements the witnessing scheme. Our work proposes a route to further experimental exploration of the quantum to classical transition.