Fluid interpretation of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics of particles with spin

Walter T. Grandy

Naoki Sato, Michio Yamada

We show that a charged fluid endowed with an internal spin degree of freedom naturally satisfies the Pauli equation for a nonrelativistic spin-1/2 particle, and that a collection of n such interacting fluids can be reformulated as an Euler flow in 3n dimensions, thereby providing a natural representation of a system of n Pauli particles. These results provide a fluid-mechanical derivation of the Pauli equation and extend the Madelung, or quantum-hydrodynamic, picture to many-particle quantum systems. In particular, they imply that an n-qubit quantum computer can, at least in principle, be realized as a suitable combination of n fluids, or equivalently as a 3n-dimensional Euler flow.

GIOVANNI SALESI

Starting from the Pauli current we obtain the decomposition of the nonrelativistic local velocity in two parts: one parallel and the other orthogonal to the impulse. The former is recognized as the “classical” part, that is, the velocity of the center-of-mass, and the latter the “quantum” one, that is, the velocity of the motion in the center-of-mass frame (namely, the internal “spin motion” or zitterbewegung), Inserting the complete expression of the velocity into the kinetic energy term of the classical nonrelativistic (i.e. Newtonian) Lagrangian, we straightforwardly get the appearance of the so-called quantum potential associated, as it is known, to the Madelung fluid. In such a way, the quantum mechanical behavior of particles appears to be strictly correlated to the existence of spin and zitterbewegung.

ANTON Z. CAPRI

Mordecai Waegell

Abstract It has recently been shown that relativistic quantum theory leads to a local interpretation of quantum mechanics wherein the universal wavefunction in configuration space is entirely replaced with an ensemble of local fluid equations in spacetime. For want of a fully relativistic quantum fluid treatment, we develop a model using the nonrelativistic Madelung equations, and obtain conditions for them to be local in spacetime. Every particle in the Madelung fluid is equally real, and has a definite position, momentum, kinetic energy, and potential energy. These are obtained by defining quantum momentum and kinetic energy densities for the fluid and separating the momentum into average and symmetric parts, and kinetic energy into classical kinetic and quantum potential parts. The two types of momentum naturally give rise to a single classical kinetic energy density, which contains the expected kinetic energy, even for stationary states, and we define the reduced quantum potential as the remaining part of the quantum kinetic energy density. We treat the quantum potential as a novel mode of internal energy storage within the fluid particles, which explains most of the nonclassical behavior of the Madelung fluid. For example, we show that in tunneling phenomena, the quantum potential negates the barrier so that nothing prevents the fluid from flowing through. We show how energy flows and transforms in this model, and that enabling local conservation of energy requires defining a quantum potential energy current that flows through the fluid rather than only flowing with it. The nonrelativistic treatment generally contains singularities in the velocity field, which undermines the goal of local dynamics, but we expect a proper relativistic treatment will bound the fluid particle velocities at c.