A fully relativistic formulation of quantum mechanics is derived by introducing a Lagrangian density of the fields between the excited and ground states and taking the action integral. The change in action, or photon, is a four-dimensional localization of fields that is defined symmetrically with respect to the field boundaries. Due to this photon model, we interpret the three mathematical formulations of atomic structure, matrix mechanics, wave mechanics, and path integrals, as different mathematical methods of describing the superposed physical components of an excited state: nucleus, electron, and photon. Recent experiments with slow and stopped light are shown to support this theoretical interpretation. The derivation of quantum theory with respect to fields requires new interpretations of the uncertainty principle, correspondence principle, complementarity, and force.
A fully relativistic formulation of quantum mechanics is derived by introducing a Lagrangian density of the fields between the excited and ground states and taking the action integral. The change in action, or photon, is a four-dimensional localization of fields that is defined symmetrically with respect to the field boundaries. Due to this photon model, we interpret the three mathematical formulations of atomic structure, matrix mechanics, wave mechanics, and path integrals, as different mathematical methods of describing the superposed physical components of an excited state: nucleus, electron, and photon. Recent experiments with slow and stopped light are shown to support this theoretical interpretation. The derivation of quantum theory with respect to fields requires new interpretations of the uncertainty principle, correspondence principle, complementarity, and force.
A fully relativistic formulation of quantum mechanics is derived by introducing a Lagrangian density of the fields between the excited and ground states and taking the action integral. The change in action, or photon, is a four-dimensional localization of fields that is defined symmetrically with respect to the field boundaries. Due to this photon model, we interpret the three mathematical formulations of atomic structure, matrix mechanics, wave mechanics, and path integrals, as different mathematical methods of describing the superposed physical components of an excited state: nucleus, electron, and photon. Recent experiments with slow and stopped light are shown to support this theoretical interpretation. The derivation of quantum theory with respect to fields requires new interpretations of the uncertainty principle, correspondence principle, complementarity, and force.
All of the mathematical formulations of quantum mechanics describe the interaction between radiation and atoms, but we show here that only Einstein has been able to establish a solid logical connection with classical theory. His methods are used to interpret the other mathematical models by requiring that observables be described in a physically-defined coordinate system and that there be strict adherence to the conservation of momentum. The properties of momentum exchange are included in a quantum oscillator, or clock, by replacing the non-relativistic Hamiltonian model with a relativistically correct Lagrangian model. Equal contributions are assigned to photon, electron, and nucleus; and field boundaries are defined that coincide with the electron shells. The fields of the particles superpose linearly, but otherwise their physical integrity is maintained throughout. The Lagrangian model accounts for the 720 degree rotation of a wave function as an initial 360 degree electromagnetic wave cycle (photon absorption) followed by a second wave cycle (photon emission), yielding two wave cycles to correspond with one complete electron cycle. The abstract space of quantum mechanics is replaced by a real classical space.
This chapter completes the physical groundwork of the thesis by examining quantum mechanics, the second of the two theories that the following chapters interpret philosophically. Rather than offering an exhaustive mathematical treatment, it selects the concepts required to follow the two transversal principles identified in Chapter 3: causality and the principle of stationary action. It presents the emergence of the quantum of action, the formal structure of the theory (states, observables, Born’s rule, Schrödinger dynamics, superposition and entanglement), the double-slit experiment, the uncertainty principle, the measurement problem, and the sequence formed by the EPR argument, Bell’s theorem and its experimental tests. Using the three senses of causality distinguished in Chapter 3, the chapter shows that Heisenberg’s 1927 attempt to refute the law of causality did not succeed: unitary evolution preserves dynamical determination at the level of the quantum state, while the no-signalling condition and relativistic microcausality preserve causal precedence and causal propagation, even though Bell-local models fail. It then shows that action, present at the very birth of the theory as Planck’s quantum of action, governs quantum dynamics through Feynman’s path integral and Schwinger’s quantum action principle, and that the classical principle of stationary action re-emerges in the classical limit. The principal result, restricted to physics, is that causality and stationary action are transversal to classical, relativistic and quantum physics, although their mathematical formulation changes. Ontological conclusions are reserved for the following chapters.
The conventional approach to quantum mechanics begins with the classical Hamiltonian and changes observables to noncommuting operators. Canonically conjugate observables have to be noncommuting operators in order to satisfy the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The dynamics of a quantum mechanical system is given by the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. In the early 1940s Feynman realized that it would be possible to construct a quantum model using the classical Lagrangian approach (a method closely related to the action integral). Dirac had earlier pointed out that eit times the Lagrangian was analogous to a transformation function for the wave function in which the wave function at one instant could be related to the wave function at a next instant in a time interval of t by multiplying with such an exponential function. Feynman found the exponential phase factor to be the action S which is the time integral of the Lagrangian. Further, he noticed that it was necessary to perform integrals over all space variables at every instant of time to find the transition amplitudes. He developed a way for describing and evaluating the integration using the idea of integral over all paths. In Feynman’s approach, the particles are described using amplitudes calculated along the paths they may or may not follow. These amplitudes behave like waves, their phase changes as the quantum system moves along the path and the amplitudes for all paths superpose and interfere. This interference between all paths is called as sum-over-histories and the resulting amplitude is connected in the same way that the amplitude of a wave function is linked to probability as magnitude-squared.
Quantum Mechanics is a successful model to describe physical phenomena. We show that a simple set of postulates about the description of objects in Nature allows the derivation of the principles of QM, transforming this theory into a deductive approach to Physics. The main postulate is: Objects are described as energy distributions in Space–Time. 1 Quantum Mechanics from START It is universally accepted that Quantum Mechanics is a successful model to describe physical phenomena, in particular of the electronic structure of atoms, molecules and solids. As such it has been reformulated in several different forms (see for example: Nine formulations of quantum mechanics, Daniel F. Styer et al. [15]). The aim of the present paper is to show that a simple set of postulates about the description of objects in Nature allows the derivation of the principles of QM, transforming this theory into a deductive approach to Physics. In our approach the main postulate is: Objects are described as energy distributions in Space–Time. The theory is in fact a systematic mathematical analysis of this postulate and of other general considerations about action, energy–momentum and the role of the theory as a useful description of Nature. The paper also shows the fundamental and basic status of Density Functional Theory, also contained in our approach. The initial mathematical structure is a geometric (quadratic form based) union of space, time and action. In physics bundles of trajectories are used to describe the objects of nature: distribution of heights over a surface, a real object is described as a bundle of space-time trajectories, here we use a description as a bundle of action valves in space-time (energy densities in space following light-like lines). The author is fully aware that the presentation is strongly guided by the knowledge of the usual computational approach to study atoms, molecules and condensed matter electronic structure.
In a previous paper, we showed that the Hamilton equations of motion of a quantum particle are obtained as group velocities of the wave packet describing this particle only if the time dependent phase of a particle wave is proportional to the Lagrangian, not to the Hamiltonian as in a solution of the conventional Schrodinger equation. When a Lagrangian of relativistic form is considered, the wave packet of a quantum particle takes a physical form, with a finite spectrum of a cut off velocity (c). Based on a relativistic quantum principle, asserting the invariance of the time dependent phase for an arbitrary change of coordinates, we obtained the relativistic kinematics and dynamics, the electromagnetic field equations, the spin and the electromagnetic and gravitational interactions. When the Lagrangian is considered as a function of the Hamiltonian, we obtain a Schrodinger type equation with an additional term depending on the velocity and the momentum operator. Based on this equation, we investigate the dynamics of a relativistic quantum particle. In this framework, such a particle is described as a continuous distribution of conservative matter, according to the general theory of relativity. In an electromagnetic field, any time dependent phase variation is modified with a term proportional to a vector potential conjugated to the spatial coordinates and a scalar potential conjugated to time. However, this classical description tells us nothing about the structure of the physical world. Only Quantum Mechanics tells us something about the structure of this world. Namely, that this world is composed of species of identical quantum particles. On one hand, experimentally, it has been found that these particles are of a wavy nature. On the other hand, one could find that the simplest way to define a quantum particle is by a wave packet, with momenta conjugated to coordinates and energy conjugated to time Consider a quantum particle as a wave packet, and find that the group velocities in the coordinate and momentum spaces are in agreement with the Hamilton equations only when the Lagrangian is considered in the time dependent phases, instead of the Hamiltonian in the conventional forms of these waves as solutions of the Schrodinger equation. We define a relativistic quantum principle, and derive a wave equation for a relativistic quantum particle, the relativistic kinematics and dynamics of the particle waves, the Maxwell equations and the Lorentz force of a field interacting with the particle waves, the relativistic transform of such a field, and the spin as a characteristic of the particle waves. We consider a quantum particle as a distribution of conservative matter propagating according to the General Theory of Relativity. We obtain the dynamics of this matter in a gravitational field, the propagation in plane waves perpendicular to geodesic tracks, and equations of conservation. We describe the matter dynamics as a positively defined density and show that, according to the general theory of relativity, such a distribution can be conceive only as of a fragment of matter with a finite mass equal to a mass , as a characteristic of the matter dynamics, – the matter quantization. The group velocities of the Fourier conjugate representations in the coordinate and momentum spaces describe the dynamics of a quantum particle in agreement with the Hamiltonian equations. Under the action of an external (non-gravitational) field, the acceleration of the quantum matter has two components: 1) A component perpendicular to the velocity, given by the relativistic mechanical component of the time dependent phase, and 2) A component given by the additional field terms of this phase. A free quantum particle is described by a non-dispersing wave function , contrary to the solution of the Schrodinger equation. A coherent electromagnetic field, in resonance with a system of active quantum particles in a Fabry-Perot cavity, has a wave vector approximately proportional to the metric elements, as the resonance frequency is approximately constant – a gravitational wave can be detected by the transmission characteristics of an active Fabry-Perot cavity. In a constant gravitational field, a quantum particle undertakes a velocity and an acceleration, which, at the boundary of a black hole are null – absorption and evaporation processes at the boundary of a black hole arise only by gravitational perturbations. Generally, a quantum particle is described by a time-space volume, called graviton, with a spin 2, and a distribution of a specific matter in this volume, with a half-integer spin for Fermions and an integer spin for Bosons. A graviton Lagrangian is obtained as a curvature integral on a graviton volume, and a Hamiltonian tensor is obtained for the gravitational coordinates and velocities. In a gravitational field, the time space coordinates are deformed. In such a field, any plane wave remains perpendicular geodesic, while an additional acceleration is possible in the wave plane.