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Advances in Theoretical & Computational Physics

A Search for A Stochastic Archetype of Quantum Probability

Tim C Jenkins

Published Jan 14, 2022• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract Superposed wavefunctions in quantum mechanics lead to a squared amplitude that introduces interference into a probability density, which has long been a puzzle because interference between probability densities exists nowhere else in probability theory. In recent years, Man’ko and coauthors have successfully reconciled quantum and classic probability using a symplectic tomographic model. Nevertheless, there remains an unexplained coincidence in quantum mechanics, namely, that mathematically, the interference term in the squared amplitude of superposed wavefunctions gives the squared amplitude the form of a variance of a sum of correlated random variables, and we examine whether there could be an archetypical variable behind quantum probability that provides a mathematical foundation that observes both quantum and classic probability directly. The properties that would need to be satisfied for this to be the case are identified, and a generic hidden variable that satisfies them is found that would be present everywhere, transforming into a process-specific variable wherever a quantum process is active. Uncovering this variable confirms the possibility that it is the stochastic archetype of quantum probability.

DOI
10.33140/atcp.04.04.08

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Abstract Superposed wavefunctions in quantum mechanics lead to a squared amplitude that introduces interference into a probability density, which has long been a puzzle because interference between probability densities exists nowhere else in probability theory. In recent years, Man’ko and coauthors have successfully reconciled quantum and classic probability using a symplectic tomographic model. Nevertheless, there remains an unexplained coincidence in quantum mechanics, namely, that mathematically, the interference term in the squared amplitude of superposed wavefunctions gives the squared amplitude the form of a variance of a sum of correlated random variables, and we examine whether there could be an archetypical variable behind quantum probability that provides a mathematical foundation that observes both quantum and classic probability directly. The properties that would need to be satisfied for this to be the case are identified, and a generic hidden variable that satisfies them is found that would be present everywhere, transforming into a process-specific variable wherever a quantum process is active. Uncovering this variable confirms the possibility that it is the stochastic archetype of quantum probability.
This article is the third of a trilogy of articles on the nature of probability in quantum mechanics. The first article [1] began by noting that superposed wavefunctions in quantum mechanics lead to a squared amplitude that introduces interference into the position probability density of an atomic particle, which happens nowhere else in probability theory. It went on to also note that there is an unexplained coincidence in quantum mechanics in that the interference term in the squared amplitude of superposed wavefunctions gives the squared amplitude the form of a variance of a sum of correlated random variables and went on to examine whether there could be an archetypical variable, in the Platonic sense of true form, behind quantum probability that would reconcile quantum probability with classic probability. This examination found such a variable, which can encompass both local and nonlocal quantum events. The second article [2] provided evidence that quantum probability has such a stochastic nature. This evidence was based on the number of electrons that need to be sent through a two-slit interferometer to gain a clear pattern of self-interference, which when compared with the number that would be expected to be sufficient in order for the position probability distribution of the self-interference wavefunction to take clear shape suggests that there is more variability present than that described by the formulation of quantum mechanics, which implies the presence of an underlying and as yet unrecognized physical process. This final article completes the trilogy by considering how a key aspect of experimental design would be affected by the increased variability that would be present if quantum probability is itself stochastic in the manner suggested in the previous two articles.
Introduction. There exists a very comprehensive theory concerning the time development of probabilistic systems. This is the Theory of Stochastic processes (1). Quantum mechanics as described by the Schrödinger equation rests very heavily on probabilistic interpretation, and yet, after forty years of remarkably rapid advances and successes, it is not clear how it is related to stochastic theory. The formal similarity of certain aspects of, and equations used in these two theories are well known. The diffusion equation corresponds to the Schrödinger equation, a correspondence only marred by a square root of minus unity appearing with the time derivative in the latter equation. The Kolmogoroff–Chapman relation for probabilities in Brownian motion has an analogue (2) in quantum mechanics, not for probabilities though, but for the complex probability amplitudes. The uncertainty relation also has a stochastic analogue (3). Some of these analogous characteristics are actually symptomatic of the gulf which separates these two theories. There are solutions to the diffusion equation which have a very clear physical probabilistic meaning. This is not the case with the corresponding and formally similar solutions to the Schrödinger equation and is partly due to the √ − 1 mentioned earlier. The probabilistic interpretation of the solutions to the diffusion equation is direct and immediate. On the other hand, the probabilistic interpretation of the solutions, ψ of the Schrödinger equation involve the introduction of the probability density, p = ψ*ψ. One great difference between these two theories lies in their each having distinct principles of linear superposition. In Stochastic Theory probabilities are superposed and in quantum mechanics amplitudes or wave functions are superposed.
The additivity of classical probabilities is only the first in a hierarchy of possible sum rules, each of which implies its successor. The first and most restrictive sum rule of the hierarchy yields measure theory in the Kolmogorov sense, which is appropriate physically for the description of stochastic processes such as Brownian motion. The next weaker sum rule defines a generalized measure theory which includes quantum mechanics as a special case. The fact that quantum probabilities can be expressed "as the squares of quantum amplitudes" is thus derived in a natural manner, and a series of natural generalizations of the quantum formalism is delineated. Conversely, the mathematical sense in which classical physics is a special case of quantum physics is clarified. The present paper presents these relationships in the context of a "realistic" interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Abstract The stochastic nature of quantum mechanics is more naturally reflected in a bilinear two-process representation of density matrices rather than in squared wave functions. This proposition comes with a remarkable change of the entanglement mechanism: entanglement effects do not originate from superpositions of wave functions, but they result from the bilinear structure of density matrices. Quantum interference appears as a multiplicative phenomenon rather than an additive superposition mechanism. We propose two general requirements such that the bilinear representation of density matrices is given in terms of two uniquely defined, identically distributed, Markovian stochastic jump processes. These general ideas are illustrated for the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen and double-slit experiments. The expression of the stochastic nature of quantum mechanics in terms of random variables rather than their probability distributions facilitates an ontological viewpoint and leads us to a bra-ket interpretation of quantum mechanics.
The stochastic nature of quantum mechanics is more naturally reflected in a bilinear two-process representation of density matrices rather than in squared wave functions. This proposition comes with a remarkable change of the entanglement mechanism: entanglement effects do not originate from superpositions of wave functions, but result from the bilinear structure of density matrices. Quantum interference appears as a multiplicative phenomenon rather than an additive superposition mechanism. We propose two general requirements such that the bilinear representation of density matrices is given in terms of two uniquely defined, identically distributed, Markovian stochastic jump processes. These general ideas are illustrated for the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen and double-slit experiments. The expression of the stochastic nature of quantum mechanics in terms of random variables rather than their probability distributions facilitates an ontological viewpoint and leads us to a bra-ket interpretation of quantum mechanics.