A theoretical aspect of quantum mechanical probabilities is studied. In particular, it is investigated whether quantum mechanical probabilities can be defined for alternatives which are not restricted to a moment of time. Firstly the meaning and the status of this investigation in quantum mechanics are explained. Secondly a general framework is constructed within which we make the investigation. Thirdly a necessary mathematical tool is reviewed and extended. Lastly the general framework is applied to concrete examples with the help of the mathematical tool. Examples of alternatives are found which are not restricted to a moment of time and for which quantum mechanical probabilities can be defined with clear measurement theoretical meanings if an initial condition of the particle belongs to a specific class. (This is the doctoral thesis of the author.)
A theoretical aspect of quantum mechanical probabilities is studied. In particular, it is investigated whether quantum mechanical probabilities can be defined for alternatives which are not restricted to a moment of time. Firstly the meaning and the status of this investigation in quantum mechanics are explained. Secondly a general framework is constructed within which we make the investigation. Thirdly a necessary mathematical tool is reviewed and extended. Lastly the general framework is applied to concrete examples with the help of the mathematical tool. Examples of alternatives are found which are not restricted to a moment of time and for which quantum mechanical probabilities can be defined with clear measurement theoretical meanings if an initial condition of the particle belongs to a specific class. (This is the doctoral thesis of the author.)
We attempt to contribute some novel points of view to the "foundations of quantum mechanics", using mathematical tools from "quantum probability theory" (such as the theory of operator algebras). We first introduce an abstract algebraic framework for the formulation of mathematical models of physical systems that is general enough to encompass classical and quantum mechanical models. After a short discussion on the properties of classical systems (realism and determinism), we move on to the study of a general class of quantum-mechanical models of physical systems and explain what some of the key problems in a quantum theory of observations and measurements are. In the last part of our essay, we attempt to elucidate the roles played by entanglement between a system and its environment and of information loss in understanding "decoherence" and "dephasing", which are key mechanisms in a quantum theory of measurements and experiments. We also discuss the problem of "time in quantum mechanics" and sketch an answer to the question when an experiment can be considered to have been completed successfully.
Quantum mechanics is basically a mathematical recipe on how to construct physical models. Historically its origin and main domain of application has been in the microscopic regime, although it strictly seen constitutes a general mathematical framework not limited to this regime. Since it is a statistical theory, the meaning and role of probabilities in it need to be defined and understood in order to gain an understanding of the predictions and validity of quantum mechanics. The interpretational problems of quantum mechanics are also connected with the interpretation of the concept of probability. In this thesis the use of probability theory as extended logic, in particular in the way it was presented by E. T. Jaynes, will be central. With this interpretation of probabilities they become a subjective notion, always dependent on one's state of knowledge or the context in which they are assigned, which has consequences on how things are to be viewed, understood and tackled in quantum mechanics. For instance, the statistical operator or density operator, is usually defined in terms of probabilities and therefore also needs to be updated when the probabilities are updated by acquisition of additional data. Furthermore, it is a context dependent notion, meaning, e.g., that two observers will in general assign different statistical operators to the same phenomenon, which is demonstrated in the papers of the thesis. It is also presented an alternative and conceptually clear approach to the problematic notion of "probabilities of probabilities", which is related to such things as probability distributions on statistical operators. In connection to this, we consider concrete numerical applications of Bayesian quantum state assignment methods to a three-level quantum system, where prior knowledge and various kinds of measurement data are encoded into a statistical operator, which can then be used for deriving probabilities of other measurements. The thesis also offers examples of an alternative quantum state assignment technique, using maximum entropy methods, which in some cases are compared with the Bayesian quantum state assignment methods. Finally, the interesting and important problem whether the statistical operator, or more generally quantum mechanics, gives a complete description of "objective physical reality" is considered. A related concern is here the possibility of finding a "local hidden-variable theory" underlying the quantum mechanical description. There have been attempts to prove that such a theory cannot be constructed, where the most well-known impossibility proof claiming to show this was given by J. S. Bell. In connection to this, the thesis presents an idea for an interpretation or alternative approach to quantum mechanics based on the concept of space-time.
A theoretical aspect of quantum mechanical probabilities is studied. In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics (NRQM) for a particle, Schrödinger's wave function assigns probabilities to possible places where the particle is found on a surface (hypersurface in Newtonian spacetime) of constant time. We may then ask if quantum mechanical probabilities can be defined for an exhaustive set of exclusive outcomes of observations made on a surface on which Newtonian time is not constant. Such a question may be said to belong to the study of the role of time in NRQM in a broad sense. Specifically we investigate the theoretical possibility of a probabilistic description of (I) where and how many times the particle intersects the surface, and of (II) where and how many times the particle is found on the surface. For each case we formulate two conditions for the success of a probabilistic description. They are the classifiability condition and the no-interference condition, both of which are conditions on the propagator of the particle. For each case it is proved that the former condition does not hold and that consequently a probabilistic description is theoretically impossible either for (I) or for (II).
We demonstrate the existence of spacetime probabilities in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, that is, quantum mechanical probabilities for a set of alternatives which are associated, not with a surface of constant time, but with spacetime domains with nonzero spatial and temporal width in Newtonian spacetime. We use the criterion that quantum mechanical probabilities can be defined for a set of alternatives if and only if the interference between any two different alternatives vanishes. Although generalized quantum mechanics was formulated on the basis of this criterion, the actual existence of spacetime probabilities has not been known. In this paper we consider a rectangular spacetime domain Ω and introduce a set of spacetime alternatives {Yes, No}: “Yes” is to find a particle in Ω and “No” is the complement to “Yes”. We show that, if the initial amplitude of the particle belongs to a specific class, then the criterion of vanishing interference is met by “Yes” and “No” and spacetime probabilities can be therefore defined for the set {Yes, No}. Owing to the property of the initial amplitude belonging to the class, the resultant probabilities are associated with a clear measurement theoretical meaning.
Quantum probability and quantum mechanics The formalism of quantum probability theory Discussions of quantum mechanics are often confused by a lack of clarity about what exactly constitutes ‘quantum mechanics’. It is therefore useful to try at the start to isolate a consistent mathematical core of quantum mechanics, and consider anything that goes beyond this core to be ‘interpretation’. For us, this core is quantum probability theory. Quantum probability is a generalization of classical probability, and therefore I begin with a brief review of the latter. I assume that the reader has some familiarity with the ideas of probability theory. What follows is just to provide a quick review, and to establish some notation and terminology. In modern classical probability theory, probabilities are defined over algebras of events. The motivation is straightforward: we begin with a set of ‘primitive’, or ‘simple’, events (the ‘sample space’), and form an algebra of events by taking all logical combinations of the simple events. For example, let us take the simple events to be the possible results of rolling a six-sided die one time, so that the sample space is the set {1,2,3,4,5,6}. We then form an algebra of events from the sample space by taking all possible logical combinations of the simple events. Logical combinations include, for example, ‘either 3 or 5’ and ‘not 3 and not 2’.