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arXiv:2110.12754 · Proceedings of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences

A generic approach to the quantum mechanical transition probability

Gerd Niestegge

Published Apr 1, 2022• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In quantum theory, the modulus-square of the inner product of two normalized Hilbert space elements is to be interpreted as the transition probability between the pure states represented by these elements. A probabilistically motivated and more general definition of this transition probability was introduced in a preceding paper and is extended here to a general type of quantum logics: the orthomodular partially ordered sets. A very general version of the quantum no-cloning theorem, creating promising new opportunities for quantum cryptography, is presented and an interesting relationship between the transition probability and Jordan algebras is highlighted.

DOI
10.1098/rspa.2021.0821

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In quantum theory, the modulus-square of the inner product of two normalized Hilbert space elements is to be interpreted as the transition probability between the pure states represented by these elements. A probabilistically motivated and more general definition of this transition probability was introduced in a preceding paper and is extended here to a general type of quantum logics: the orthomodular partially ordered sets. A very general version of the quantum no-cloning theorem, creating promising new opportunities for quantum cryptography, is presented and an interesting relationship between the transition probability and Jordan algebras is highlighted.
The quantum mechanical no-cloning theorem for pure states is generalized and transfered to the quantum logics with a conditional probability calculus. This is, on the one hand, an extension of the classical probability calculus and, on the other hand, a mathematical generalization of the Lueders - von Neumann quantum measurement process. In the non-classical case, a very special type of conditional probability emerges, describing the probability for the transition from a past event to a future event independently of any underlying state. This probability results from the algebraic structure of the quantum logic only and is invariant under algebraic morphisms, which is used to prove the generalized no-cloning theorem in a rather abstract, though simple and basic fashion without relying on a tensor product construction as required in other approaches.
Quantum mechanics is usually described in the terminology of probability theory even though the properties of the probability spaces associated with it are fundamentally different from the standard ones of probability theory. For example, Kolmogorov's axioms are not general enough to encompass the non-commutative situations that arise in quantum theory. There have been many attempts to generalise these axioms to meet the needs of quantum mechanics. The focus of these attempts has been the observation, first made by Birkhoff and von Neumann (1936), that the propositions associated with a quantum-mechanical system do not form a Boolean σ-algebra. There is almost universal agreement that the probability space associated with a quantum-mechanical system is given by the set of subspaces of a separable Hilbert space, but there is disagreement over the algebraic structure that this set represents. In the most popular model for the probability space of quantum mechanics the propositions are assumed to form an orthocomplemented lattice (Mackey (1963), Jauch (1968)). The fundamental concept here is that of a partial order, that is a binary relation that is reflexive and transitive but not symmetric. The partial order is interpreted as embodying the logical concept of implication in the set of propositions associated with the physical system. Although this model provides an acceptable mathematical expression of the probabilistic structure of quantum mechanics in that the subspaces of a separable Hilbert space give a representation of an ortho-complemented lattice, it has several deficiencies which will be discussed later.
Max Born's statistical interpretation made probabilities play a major role in quantum theory. Here we show that these quantum probabilities and the classical probabilities have very different origins. While the latter always result from an assumed probability measure, the first include transition probabilities with a purely algebraic origin. Moreover, the general definition of transition probability introduced here comprises not only the well-known quantum mechanical transition probabilities between pure states or wave functions, but further novel cases. A transition probability that differs from 0 and 1 manifests the typical quantum indeterminacy in a similar way as Heisenberg's and others' uncertainty relations and, furthermore, rules out deterministic states in the same way as the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem. However, the transition probability defined here achieves a lot more beyond that: it demonstrates that the algebraic structure of the Hilbert space quantum logic dictates the precise values of certain probabilities and it provides an unexpected access to these quantum probabilities that does not rely on states or wave functions.
Max Born's statistical interpretation made probabilities play a major role in quantum theory. Here we show that these quantum probabilities and the classical probabilities have very different origins. Although the latter always result from an assumed probability measure, the first include transition probabilities with a purely algebraic origin. Moreover, the general definition of transition probability introduced here comprises not only the well-known quantum mechanical transition probabilities between pure states or wave functions, but further physically meaningful and experimentally verifiable novel cases. A transition probability that differs from 0 and 1 manifests the typical quantum indeterminacy in a similar way as Heisenberg's and others' uncertainty relations and, furthermore, rules out deterministic states in the same way as the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem. However, the transition probability defined here achieves a lot more beyond that: it demonstrates that the algebraic structure of the Hilbert space quantum logic dictates the precise values of certain probabilities and it provides an unexpected access to these quantum probabilities that does not rely on states or wave functions.
First steps are taken toward a formulation of quantum mechanics which avoids the use of probability amplitudes and is expressed entirely in terms of observable probabilities. Quantum states are represented not by state vectors or density matrices but by “probability tables,” which contain only the probabilities of the outcomes of certain special measurements. The rule for computing transition probabilities, normally given by the squared modulus of the inner product of two state vectors, is re-expressed in terms of probability tables. The new version of the rule is surprisingly simple, especially when one considers that the notion of complex phases, so crucial in the evaluation of inner products, is entirely absent from the representation of states used here.
In the years 1952 and 1965, H.-C. Wang and U. Hirzebruch showed that the two-point homogeneous compact spaces with convex metrics are isometric to the spheres, the real, complex, octonion projective spaces and the Moufang plane and as well to the sets of the minimal idempotents or pure states in the simple Euclidean Jordan algebras. Here we reveal the physical meaning of these mathematical achievements for the quantum mechanical transition probability. We show that this transition probability features a maximum degree of homogeneity in all simple Euclidean Jordan algebras, which includes common finite-dimensional Hilbert space quantum theory. The atomic parts of these algebras or, equivalently, the extreme boundaries of their state spaces can be characterized by purely topological means. This is an important difference to many other recent approaches that aim to distinguish the entire state spaces among the convex compact sets. An interesting case with non-homogeneous transition probability arises, when the E6E_6E6​-symmetric bioctonionic projective plane is used as quantum logic.