Minimalist Quantum Mechanics

Emilia Margoni

Abstract Michael Esfeld’s minimalist ontology is committed to two axioms relating to (1) distance relations that identify simple objects (permanent matter points) while (2) the distances between them change. This article scrutinizes such a conceptual strategy to determine whether it can successfully be applied to all levels of physical reality, as Esfeld contends. To do so, it explores one of his paradigmatic sources, that is, Bohmian mechanics. Two arguments are proposed. First, while Bohm’s original formulation of Bohmian mechanics and the interpretation advocated by Dürr, Goldstein & Zanghì are typically taken as mathematically equivalent, this article argues that Esfeld’s minimalist ontology does not cover the former’s ontological richness. To secure its achievement, the minimalist ontology framework needs to (i) break the equivalence between the two versions via a commitment to the nomological interpretation of the wavefunction (ii) yet attribute some kind of physical efficacy to the wavefunction as a guiding parameter for the evolution of particles living in three-dimensional space. Both requirements will be critically addressed. Second, the article shows that Esfeld’s metaphysical program is not only forced to rely on a theoretically suspicious formulation of quantum mechanics, but that more fundamental, under-development approaches in theoretical physics are way less reconcilable with its axioms, thus questioning its alleged universality.

Yakir Aharonov

Ying Jing

Sagar Kapadia

The no-signaling theorem asserts that quantum entanglement cannot be used to transmitcontrollable information between spacelike-separated parties, preserving relativistic causality Peres [1995]. This paper introduces the Minimalist Event-Based Theory of Information(MEBTI), which defines information as the reliable detection of a binary event deliberately triggered or not triggered at will by an agent. Under MEBTI, we re-evaluate theno-signaling theorem’s universality, arguing that its reliance on classical definitions of information (e.g., Shannon’s ensemble statistics or von Neumann’s state uncertainty Nielsenand Chuang [2000]) renders it ontologically limited. MEBTI bypasses these constraints byfocusing on single, agent-triggered events, challenging the theorem’s applicability to all conceivable definitions of information. While the theorem remains a valid physical constraintwithin standard quantum mechanics, we propose new experiments designed under MEBTIto empirically test whether instantaneous information transmission via entanglement is possible, potentially reshaping our understanding of quantum non-locality

G. Feild

F.J. Duarte

The question of when quantum mechanics becomes classical mechanics is considered from an N-slit interferometric perspective. In this regard, the design of an N-slit heavy-atom interferometer is depicted and discussed. This work includes a conceptual and experimental discussion of the Diósi-Penrose hypothesis. Such hypothesis is found to be decoupled from the interferometric foundations of quantum mechanics. For the boundary situation beyond which interference, for heavy-atom aggregates, is no longer viable, a minimalist principle is suggested: spontaneous nonsuperposition, at the probability amplitude level. This is proposed as onset for the quantum → classical transition.