Stochastic representations of wave phenomena

Austin Blaquière

Jacob A. Barandes

This paper argues that every quantum system can be understood as a sufficiently general kind of stochastic process unfolding in an old-fashioned configuration space according to ordinary notions of probability. This argument is based on an exact correspondence between the class of `indivisible' stochastic processes and quantum theory. This new stochastic-quantum correspondence demotes the wave function from a primary ontological ingredient to a secondary mathematical tool, and yields a deflationary account of exotic quantum phenomena, such as interference, decoherence, entanglement, noncommutative observables, and wave-function collapse. At a more practical level, the stochastic-quantum correspondence leads to a novel reconstruction of quantum theory, alongside the Hilbert-space, path-integral, and quasiprobability representations, and also provides a framework for using Hilbert-space methods to formulate highly generic, non-Markovian types of stochastic dynamics, with potential applications throughout the sciences.

Michael Beyer, Wolfgang Paul

Among the famous formulations of quantum mechanics, the stochastic picture developed since the middle of the last century remains one of the less known ones. It is possible to describe quantum mechanical systems with kinetic equations of motion in configuration space based on conservative diffusion processes. This leads to the representation of physical observables through stochastic processes instead of self-adjoint operators. The mathematical foundations of this approach were laid by Edward Nelson in 1966. It allows a different perspective on quantum phenomena without necessarily using the wave-function. This article recaps the development of stochastic mechanics with a focus on variational and extremal principles. Furthermore, based on recent developments of optimal control theory, the derivation of generalized canonical equations of motion for quantum systems within the stochastic picture are discussed. These so-called quantum Hamilton equations add another layer to the different formalisms from classical mechanics that find their counterpart in quantum mechanics.

Gerard McCaul

EDWARD B. NELSON

Evgeny Polyakov, P. N. Vorontsov‐Velyaminov

In this work we investigate the exact classical stochastic representations of many-body quantum dynamics.We focus on the representations in which the quantum states and the observables are linearly mapped onto classical quasiprobability distributions and functions in a certain (abstract) phase space.We demonstrate that when such representations have regular mathematical properties, they are reduced to the expansions of the density operator over a certain overcomplete operator basis.Our conclusions are supported by the fact that all the stochastic representations currently known in the literature (quantum mechanics in generalized phase space and, as it recently has been shown by us, the stochastic wave-function methods) have the mathematical structure of the above-mentioned type.We illustrate our considerations by presenting the recently derived operator mappings for the stochastic wave-function method.