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Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields

Statistical Basis for Quantum Theory: The Embedding Formalism

R. Collins

Published Aug 15, 1970• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The formulation of quantum theory on the basis of the statistical definition of a duplicated experiment, as initiated in a recent paper, is used to reexamine the embedding formalism introduced in earlier papers. It is shown that the familiar relations between momentum and coordinate representations are given a statistical basis by the embedding theory. It is also shown that a complete quantum theory includes three fundamental sets of operators and that one of these seems to represent an operator formalism for thermodynamics.

DOI
10.1103/physrevd.2.666

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The formulation of quantum theory on the basis of the statistical definition of a duplicated experiment, as initiated in a recent paper, is used to reexamine the embedding formalism introduced in earlier papers. It is shown that the familiar relations between momentum and coordinate representations are given a statistical basis by the embedding theory. It is also shown that a complete quantum theory includes three fundamental sets of operators and that one of these seems to represent an operator formalism for thermodynamics.
The premise that physical variables must be viewed as random variables, with observed values, assigned as averages over distributions, is shown to yield the formalisms of thermodynamics, Hamiltonian mechanics, and quantum theory. A general mathematical argument first establishes the validity of an embedding of th space of physical variables in a larger manifold of "hidden" variables and a general structure for the distribution of these variables. Then, by consideration of various ways of specifying the preparation of a system for measurement, the formalisms of physics cited above are deduced. It is also shown that the generalized Langevin equation follows from these premises and is applicable to a wide class of phenomena. This formulation yields a new definition for compatible observables as used in quantum theory and demonstrates, in a natural way, that physical laws should be invariant under orthogonal transformations of certain variables, which in one circumstance include the complex orthogonal transformations of the Lorentz form, as in special relativity. In summary, it appears that most of the formal structure of physical theory is a consequence of the statistical nature of physical variables.
Beginning with the definition of a duplicated experiment and the fact that the resulting data are summarized as a set of configurations of some observables, together with frequencies of occurrence of each configuration, we derive the formal structure of conventional quantum theory using only the statistical properties of such data, and show that certain elements of the theory have heretofore been overlooked. This derivation yields a rather broad generalization of the theory which suggests new methods for describing phase transitions and possibly fundamental particles as well.
Some aspects of the interpretation of quantum theory are discussed.It is emphasized that quantum theory is formulated in a Cartesian coordinate system; in other coordinates the result obtained with the help of the Hamiltonian formalism and commutator relations between 'canonically conjugated' coordinate and momentum operators leads to a wrong version of quantum mechanics.In this connection the Feynman integral formalism is also discussed.In this formalism the measure is not well-defined and there is no idea how to distinguish between the true version of quantum mechanics and an incorrect one; it is rather a mnemonic rule to generate perturbation series from an undefined zero order term.The origin of time is analyzed in detail by the example of atomic collisions.It is shown that the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the closed three-body (two nuclei + electron) system has no physical meaning since in the high impact energy limit it transforms into an equation with two independent time-like variables; the time appears in the stationary Schrödinger equation as a result of extraction of a classical subsystem (two nuclei) from a closed three-body system.Following the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment and Bell's inequality the wave function is interpreted as an actual field of information in the elementary form.The relation between physics and mathematics is also discussed.
This essay begins with considerations of the relational structure of a set of variables taken to represent a conceptual universe. A plausible argument is used to establish the necessity for a statistical description of any nonstatic set of such variables. A particular statistical description is then constructed based on a partition of the set of variables into two statistically independent sets. This statistical description is then shown to yield equations formally equivalent to familiar equations of thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, and classical mechanics. This mathematical development is strongly suggestive of a unified way of looking at several divergent fields of physics.
In classical mechanics the state of a dynamical system at any particular time can be described by the values of a set of coordinates and their conjugate momenta, thus, if the system has n degrees of freedom, by 2n numbers. In quantum mechanics, on the other hand, we have to describe a state of the system by a wave function involving a set of coordinates, thus by a function of n variables. The quantum description is, therefore, much more complicated than the classical one. Let us consider, however, an ensemble of systems in Gibbs' sense, i.e. not a large number of actual systems which could, perhaps, interact with one another, but a large number of hypothetical systems which are introduced to describe one actual system of which our knowledge is only of a statistical nature. The basis of the quantum treatment of such an ensemble has been given by Neumann. The description obtained by Neumann of an ensemble on the quantum theory is no more complicated than the corresponding classical description. Thus the quantum theory, which appears to such a disadvantage on the score of complication when applied to individual systems, recovers its own when applied to an ensemble. It is the object of the present note to examine this question more closely and to show how complete the analogy is between the quantum and classical treatments of an ensemble.
The Statistical Interpretation of quantum theory is formulated for the purpose of providing a sound interpretation using a minimum of assumptions. Several arguments are advanced in favor of considering the quantum state description to apply only to an ensemble of similarily prepared systems, rather than supposing, as is often done, that it exhaustively represents an individual physical system. Most of the problems associated with the quantum theory of measurement are artifacts of the attempt to maintain the latter interpretation. The introduction of hidden variables to determine the outcome of individual events is fully compatible with the statistical predictions of quantum theory. However, a theorem due to Bell seems to require that any such hidden-variable theory which reproduces all of quantum mechanics exactly (i.e., not merely in some limiting case) must possess a rather pathological character with respect to correlated, but spacially separated, systems.