So far, the wave function has been interpreted as a probability amplitude, which is given physical meaning by ensemble averages of a large number of identical systems at a given time. We give an alternative interpretation of the wave function for a single system by means of a measurement which lasts a long time. This is a measurement on a single quantum system which determines the expectation values of (not necessarily commuting) observables while the wave function is protected from collapsing because it undergoes another suitably chosen interaction. This type of measurement enables the distinction between states which are not orthogonal, but are protected by a suitable interaction with the states of their environment, even for a single system. It therefore gives a different ontological meaning to the wave function. Several experiments in which such a measurement is realized, which can in principle be performed using electrons, neutrons, or atoms, are studied.
So far, the wave function has been interpreted as a probability amplitude, which is given physical meaning by ensemble averages of a large number of identical systems at a given time. We give an alternative interpretation of the wave function for a single system by means of a measurement which lasts a long time. This is a measurement on a single quantum system which determines the expectation values of (not necessarily commuting) observables while the wave function is protected from collapsing because it undergoes another suitably chosen interaction. This type of measurement enables the distinction between states which are not orthogonal, but are protected by a suitable interaction with the states of their environment, even for a single system. It therefore gives a different ontological meaning to the wave function. Several experiments in which such a measurement is realized, which can in principle be performed using electrons, neutrons, or atoms, are studied.
The wave function gives not the density of stuff, but gives rather (on squaring its modulus) the density of probability. Probability of what, exactly? Not of the electron being there, but of the electron being found there, if its position is ‘measured’. Why this aversion to ‘being’ and insistence on ‘finding’? The founding fathers were unable to form a clear picture of things on the remote atomic scale . John S. Bell (1990) Introduction The physical meaning of the wave function is an important interpretative problem of quantum mechanics. Notwithstanding nearly ninety years of development of the theory, it is still an unsolved issue. During recent years, more and more research has been done on the ontological status and meaning of the wave function (see, e.g. Monton, 2002; Lewis, 2004; Gao, 2011a, 2011b; Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph, 2012; Ney and Albert, 2013). In particular, Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph (2012) demonstrated that under certain non-trivial assumptions such as the preparation independence assumption, the wave function of a quantum system is a representation of the physical state of the system. This poses a further question, namely whether the reality of the wave function can be argued without resorting to non-trivial assumptions. Moreover, a harder problem is to determine the ontological meaning of the wave function, which is still a hot topic of debate in the realistic alternatives to quantum mechanics such as the de Broglie–Bohm theory or Bohmian mechanics (Belot, 2012). In this chapter, we will first give a clearer argument for the reality of the wave function in terms of protective measurements, which does not depend on non-trivial assumptions and can also overcome existing objections. Next, based on an analysis of the mass and charge properties of a quantum system, we will propose a new ontological interpretation of the wave function. According to this interpretation, the wave function of an N -body system represents the state of ergodic motion of N particles.
In classical mechanics, as we know, all observables commute with each other and therefore belong to the same “commuting set.” This means that – in principle – we can measure all observables simultaneously. Then, the state manifests itself as a collection of properties (of values of observables) (see Sec. 1.1), and as such it is observable. On the other hand, quantum-mechanical observables may not commute (see Subsec. 2.1.5). As a consequence, the state is not just a collection of observable values (see also Sec. 2.3) so that we may ask ourselves whether it is observable or not, and therefore raise the following question: What is the nature of the wave function? Is it simply a mathematical tool, i.e. does it only represent the sum of all that we can know about a system? Or does it have an ontological status? Since the early days of quantum mechanics, this question has been very popular. As a first attempt, de Broglie tried to interpret the wave function as describing, in classical terms, a wave field that envelopes a classical particle (see also Subsec. 16.3.2). This theory should predict the existence of empty waves, but several experiments have shown negative results (see also the end of Sec. 9.6). More recently, many physicists have tried to propose some methods in order to measure the wave function. Here we shortly report on some of these proposals and discuss to what extent the quantum state can be measured.
My view on the meaning of the quantum wave function and its connection to protective measurements is described. The wave function and only the wave function is the ontology of the quantum theory. Protective measurements support this view although they do not provide a decisive proof. A brief review of the discovery and the criticism of protective measurement is presented. Protective measurements with postselection are discussed. Introduction In the first graduate course of quantum mechanics I remember asking the question: “Can we consider the wave function as a description of a single quantum system?” I got no answer. Twelve years later, in South Carolina, after I completed my Ph.D. studies at Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Yakir Aharonov in which we developed the theory of weak measurements [1], I asked Aharonov: Can we use weak measurement to observe the wave function of a single particle? At that time I had already become a strong believer in the many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics [2] and had no doubt that a single system is described by the wave function. Yakir Aharonov never shared with me the belief in the MWI. When we realized that using what is called now protective measurement , we can, under certain conditions, observe the wave function of a single quantum system, he was really excited by the result. At 1992 I was invited to a conference on the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics in Japan where I presented this result: “The Schrödinger wave is observable after all!”[3]. Then I went home to Tel Aviv where I finished writing a letter which received mixed reviews in Phys. Rev. Lett. , while Jeeva Anandan, working on the topic with Aharonov in South Carolina, wrote a paper accepted in Phys. Rev. A [4]. After acceptance of the PRA paper it was hard to fight the referees in PRL, but PLA accepted it immediately [5].
We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distributions of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has effective mass and charge density distributing in space, proportional to the square of the absolute value of its wave function. In a realistic interpretation, the wave function of a quantum system can be taken as a description of either a physical field or the ergodic motion of a particle. The essential difference between a field and the ergodic motion of a particle lies in the property of simultaneity; a field exists throughout space simultaneously, whereas the ergodic motion of a particle exists throughout space in a time‐divided way. If the wave function is a physical field, then the mass and charge density will be distributed in space simultaneously for a charged quantum system, and thus there will exist gravitational and electrostatic self‐interactions of its wave function. This not only violates the superposition principle of quantum mechanics but also contradicts experimental observations. Thus the wave function cannot be a description of a physical field but be a description of the ergodic motion of a particle. For the later there is only a localized particle with mass and charge at every instant, and thus there will not exist any self‐interaction for the wave function. It is further argued that the classical ergodic models, which assume continuous motion of particles, cannot be consistent with quantum mechanics. Based on the negative result, we suggest that the wave function is a description of the quantum motion of particles, which is random and discontinuous in nature. On this interpretation, the square of the absolute value of the wave function not only gives the probability of the particle being found in certain locations, but also gives the probability of the particle being there. The suggested new interpretation of the wave function provides a natural realistic alternative to the orthodox interpretation, and it also implies that the de Broglie‐Bohm theory and many‐worlds interpretation are wrong and the dynamical collapse theories are in the right direction by admitting wavefunction collapse.
Quantum mechanics has been enormously successful in explaining the behavior of microsystems such as molecules, atoms, and nuclei. We have seen that quantum mechanics describes a quantum system by the wave function ψ, which is the solution of the Schro¨dinger equation. The wave function determines the probability amplitudes (whose modulus squared gives the probability) for all possible outcomes of a measurement corresponding to an observable on the system. In general, the wave function does not uniquely predict the result of a measurement; it only provides a probability distribution for all possible results of the measurement on a quantum system. Only if the system happens to be in an eigenstate corresponding to the observable being measured, is the result of a measurement of this observable completely predictable. On the other hand, the results of measurements corresponding to a conjugate or non-commuting observable, on the same system in the same state, are indeterminate. Quantum mechanical description of physical systems raises profound questions: How are the wave function and the probabilities for different outcomes of a measurement to be interpreted? Does the wave function represent a single system or an ensemble of systems? Does the physical system actually have the attribute corresponding to the measurement in question or does the measurement itself create the attribute? These questions led to different interpretations of quantum mechanics, which were vigorously debated during the years of its discovery as also in the following decades. The new idea of indeterminacy was especially difficult to reconcile with the long-held view that a physical theory should aim at predicting accurately, and without ambiguity, the result of any measurement on any system, big or small. These debates not only gave us a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics but also changed profoundly the way we view the micro-world.
Introduction One of the crucial issues about protective measurements is the extent to which they provide (additional) grounds for some realist understanding of the wave function. This issue is notoriously subject to debate, which is not the aim of this chapter. Rather, this chapter aims at clarifying the further issue of the ontological picture corresponding to the realist understanding of the wave function possibly suggested by protective measurements. Oddly enough, proponents of a realist reading of protective measurements remain in general rather vague about ontology (see for instance Aharonov et al. (1993, 4624), who assimilate the wave function to an “extended object” without further details, or the brief and somewhat unprecise discussion in Dickson (1995, 135–136) of the interpretation of the wave function within Bohmian mechanics (BM) and within the theoretical framework elaborated by Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber (GRW); in this volume, Gao does propose a more elaborated ontological model for quantum mechanics (QM) based on protective measurements). Despite this vagueness (or maybe because of it), it seems that the most obvious ontological intuition resulting from protective measurements points towards some form of straightforward realism about the wave function understood in the sense of a real, physical field: indeed, protective measurements are claimed to allow measuring expectation values of observables on a single quantum system, thereby providing the possibility of reconstructing (i.e. “measuring” in some sense) the wave function of a single quantum system. Aharonov et al. (1996, 125) clearly express this intuition: “We can observe the expectations values of operators, and we can observe the density and the current of the Schrödinger wave. We can “see” in some sense the Schrödinger wave. This leads us to believe that it has physical reality.” Therefore, this kind of intuition seems in line with a realist conception of the wave function, according to which the wave function is considered as a real substantial, material in some sense) entity on its own (this view is often called “wave function realism”).