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AIP conference proceedings

Multiple Interaction-Free Measurement as a Challenge to the Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Avshalom C. Elitzur, Shahar Dolev

Published Jan 1, 2006• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Cramer’s analysis of interaction‐free measurement in terms of his Transactional Interpretation is critically reviewed. Next we attempt to apply it to some varieties of IFM that have been devised during the last decade, pointing out the challenges posed by such attempt We then discuss the possible bearings of these experiments on the Transactional Interpretation as well as on the nature of spacetime.

DOI
10.1063/1.2388746

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•Sep 14, 2023•0 citations
Cramer’s analysis of interaction‐free measurement in terms of his Transactional Interpretation is critically reviewed. Next we attempt to apply it to some varieties of IFM that have been devised during the last decade, pointing out the challenges posed by such attempt We then discuss the possible bearings of these experiments on the Transactional Interpretation as well as on the nature of spacetime.
The polemical term interaction-free measurement (IFM) is analyzed in its interpretative nature. Two seminal works proposing the term are revisited and their underlying interpretations are assessed. The role played by nonlocal quantum correlations (entanglement) is formally discussed and some controversial conceptions in the original treatments are identified. As a result the term IFM is shown to be consistent neither with the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics nor with the lessons provided by the EPR debate.
In 1993 Elitzur and Vaidmannl (EV) demonstrated that quantum mechanics permits the use of light quanta to examine an object without a single photon having actually interacted with the object, requiring only the possibility of such an interaction. The EV scenario has recently been carried out in the laboratory and its predictions verified. EV discussed their scenario in terms of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, in which the interaction-free result is rather mysterious, using a “knowledge” not available classically. They also used the Everett-Wheeler interpretation and suggested that the information indicating the presence of the opaque object comes from an interaction in a separate Everett-Wheeler universe, with the information communicated to our universe through the absence of interference. In the present work, we will examine the EV interaction-free scenario in terms of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics2 and will provide a more plausible account of the physical processes that make possible quantum interaction-free measurements.
The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics [1] was originally published in 1986 and is now about 14 years old. It is an explicitly nonlocal and Lorentz invariant alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation. It interprets the formalism for a quantum interaction as describing a “handshake” between retarded waves (ψ) and advanced waves (ψ*) for each quantum event or “transaction” in which energy, momentum, angular momentum, and other conserved quantities are transferred. The transactional interpretation offers the advantages that (1) it is actually “visible” in the formalism of quantum mechanics, (2) it is economical, involving fewer independent assumptions than its rivals, (3) it is paradox-free, resolving all of the paradoxes of standard quantum theory including nonlocality and wave function collapse, (4) it does not give a privileged role to observers or measurements, and (5) it permits the visualization of quantum events. We will review the transactional interpretation and some of its applications to “quantum paradoxes.”
Abstract There is a consensus among physicists about the outcome of any experiment. However, there continues to be discussion about the interpretation of these results. At the heart of this discussion is the so-called measurement problem. The interaction of the particles with the measurement apparatus forms the measurement problem that has haunted physicists since the very early days of quantum mechanics. The problem is that quantum mechanics only describes the evolution of the wavefunction with time, but does not answer about the interaction with the measurement apparatus. These issues, related to the measurement problem, have led physicists to come up with different interpretations. Many possibilities are discussed. One of the most amazing resolutions of the measurement problem is via the possibility of the existence of multiple universes. This many-worlds approach is a desperate attempt to solve the measurement problem.