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Quantum gravity and the problem of measurement

González-Diáz, P F

Published Sep 10, 1997• 1 citation
OpenAlex

Abstract

We discuss some arguments in favour of the proposal that the quantum correlations contained in the pure state-vector evolving according to Schoedinger equation can be eliminated by the action of multiply connected wormholes during measurement. We devise a procedure to obtain a proper master equation which governes the changes of the reduced density matrix of matter fields interacting with doubly connected wormholes. It is shown that this master equation predicts an appropriate damping of the off-diagonal correlations contained in the state vector.

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We discuss some arguments in favour of the proposal that the quantum correlations contained in the pure state-vector evolving according to Schoedinger equation can be eliminated by the action of multiply connected wormholes during measurement. We devise a procedure to obtain a proper master equation which governes the changes of the reduced density matrix of matter fields interacting with doubly connected wormholes. It is shown that this master equation predicts an appropriate damping of the off-diagonal correlations contained in the state vector.
Sean Carroll’s July Quick Study, “Addressing the quantum measurement problem” (page 62), brings up the following question: Does the wavefunction still obey the Schrödinger equation when a measurement is made? A system being measured (or interacting with its environment in any other way) is actually a subsystem, and a subsystem is properly described by a reduced density matrix. The density matrix for an entire system corresponds to a wavefunction—that is, to a pure state—but the density matrix for a subsystem does not necessarily correspond to a wavefunction. The reduced density matrix of a subsystem may correspond to an impure state, also called a mixture or an incoherent combination,11. A. Bohm, Quantum Mechanics: Foundations and Applications, 3rd ed., Springer (1993), p. 72. which does not have well-defined pure-state content.22. See, for example, L. E. Ballentine, Quantum Mechanics: A Modern Development, 2nd ed., World Scientific (2015), chap. 2. In the words of Kurt Gottfried and Tung-Mow Yan, “systems in the real world are rarely in pure states.”33. K. Gottfried, T.-M. Yan, Quantum Mechanics: Fundamentals, 2nd ed., Springer (2003), p. 46.The proper way to discuss a measurement is not using a wavefunction but rather a reduced density matrix. The density matrix of a pure state evolves according to the Liouville–von Neumann equation, which is equivalent to the unitary evolution of the wavefunction by the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. For a subsystem (that is, for any system except the entire universe), the reduced density matrix evolves according to the nonunitary Liouville–von Neumann equation, which has an additional contribution causing decoherence and dissipation.44. See, for example, D. A. Micha, Int. J. Quantum Chem. 80, 394 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-461X(2000)80:3<394::AID-QUA9>3.0.CO;2-U The nature of the measurement—or, more generally, the nature of the subsystem–environment interaction—selects a preferred basis, called the pointer basis, and the subsystem decoheres into an effectively classical mixture in the pointer basis. (See the article by Wojciech Zurek, Physics Today, October 1991, page 36.)ReferencesSection:ChooseTop of pageReferences <<1. A. Bohm, Quantum Mechanics: Foundations and Applications, 3rd ed., Springer (1993), p. 72. Google Scholar2. See, for example, L. E. Ballentine, Quantum Mechanics: A Modern Development, 2nd ed., World Scientific (2015), chap. 2. Google Scholar3. K. Gottfried, T.-M. Yan, Quantum Mechanics: Fundamentals, 2nd ed., Springer (2003), p. 46. Google ScholarCrossref4. See, for example, D. A. Micha, Int. J. Quantum Chem. 80, 394 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1002/1097-461X(2000)80:3<394::AID-QUA9>3.0.CO;2-U, Google ScholarCrossref© 2022 American Institute of Physics.
No experimental evidence exists, to date, whether or not the gravitational field must be quantised. Theoretical arguments in favour of quantisation are inconclusive. The most straightforward alternative to quantum gravity, a coupling between classical gravity and quantum matter according to the semi-classical Einstein equations, yields a nonlinear modification of the Schrödinger equation. Here, effects of this so-called Schrödinger-Newton equation are discussed, which allow for technologically feasible experimental tests.
By considering the measurement of a quantum spin by two different models of the measuring apparatus, we try to throw some light on the nature of the apparatus that can perform quantum measurement. Our scheme is to consider a quantum spin in interaction with another quantum system playing the role of an apparatus, which in turn is dissipatively coupled to an environment. The coupling with the environment drives the density matrix of the apparatus to a diagonal form. However, measurement is performed only when the reduced density matrix of the apparatus contains correlations with the states of the spin. The two examples considered here show that this happens when the quantum apparatus has a well-defined classical limit. If the apparatus does not have a well-defined classical limit, the reduced density matrix of the apparatus is not correlated with the states of the measured system.
We give a first principles derivation of a master equation for the evolution of a quantum matter field in a linearly perturbed Minkowski spacetime, based solely on quantum field theory and general relativity. We make no additional assumptions nor introduce extra ingredients, as is often done in alternative quantum theories. When the quantum matter field is projected to a one-particle state, the master equation for a non-relativistic quantum particle in a weak gravitational field predicts decoherence in the energy basis , in contrast to most existing theories of gravitational decoherence. We point out the gauge nature of time and space reparameterizations in matter–gravity couplings, and warn that 'intrinsic' decoherence or alternative quantum theories invoking stochastic dynamics arising from temporal or spatial fluctuations violate this fundamental symmetry of classical general relativity. Interestingly we find that the decoherence rate depends on extra parameters other than the Planck scale, an important feature of gravitational decoherence. This is similar to the dependence of the decoherence rate of a quantum Brownian particle to the temperature and spectral density of the environment it interacts with. The corresponding features when gravity acts as an environment in decohering quantum objects are what we call the ' textures' of spacetime . We point out the marked difference between the case when gravity is represented as a background spacetime versus the case when gravity acts like a thermodynamic bath to quantum particles. This points to the possibility of using gravitational decoherence measurements to discern whether gravity is intrinsically elemental or emergent.
The possible quantum state of wormholes or little baby universes should be described by a nonfactorizable density matrix given by the path integral over the class of asymptotically flat four-geometries and asymptotically vanishing matter-field configurations which suitably match the prescribed data on three-surfaces which do not divide the manifold on the inner boundary. An instanton is here obtained which can represent such a nonsimply connected wormhole manifold, and is used to evaluate the asymptotic effective interaction of the resulting correlated baby universes with ordinary quantum fields at low energies in the Fock representation. It is argued that the demand of locality on the interacting quantum field commutators is no longer valid for correlated baby universes, and it is therefore concluded that quantum coherence in the matter-field sector is lost as a consequence of the interaction with nonsimply connected wormholes. A proposal is advanced that wormholes may provide us with a complementary quantum state sector that would induce the collapse of the state vector in the quantum measurement of any observable for ordinary microscopic matter systems.