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Physics International

On the Verification of the Multiverse

Thomas Stenersen

Published Jan 1, 2022• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The interpretation of measurements in quantum mechanics has been disputed for over a century. The scope of this study is to find an experimental test of Everett’s many-worlds interpretation that could potentially verify the existence of a multiverse. Our proposal is based on a quantum field theory formulation of the many-worlds interpretation through the path integral formalism and a careful choice of the vacuum state. By generalizing the earlier quantum suicide thought experiment to quantum field theory, we find that the many-worlds interpretation implies a measurable change in the lifetime of elementary particles.

DOI
10.3844/pisp.2022.17.20

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The interpretation of measurements in quantum mechanics has been disputed for over a century. The scope of this study is to find an experimental test of Everett’s many-worlds interpretation that could potentially verify the existence of a multiverse. Our proposal is based on a quantum field theory formulation of the many-worlds interpretation through the path integral formalism and a careful choice of the vacuum state. By generalizing the earlier quantum suicide thought experiment to quantum field theory, we find that the many-worlds interpretation implies a measurable change in the lifetime of elementary particles.
We propose a set of simple quantum optics experiments that test for an entirely new domain of physical laws that govern how an individual's conscious experience traverses the multiverse within Everett's many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. These experiments imply an exception to the Born rule in a proposed ''observer-specific'' reference frame. These experiments must be done by you, the reader. If it is performed by anyone else, other than you, the reader, you will observe that the person performing the experiment will observe an outcome that is not special, interesting, or different from what is already known about quantum mechanics. To the best of our knowledge, this would be the first ever modern experiment that is only meaningful if the experiment is performed by you, the reader, and cannot be inferred from the results of another experimenter. Therefore, since each individual must perform this test on his or her own, we outline a set of real experiments that can be easily performed such that as many people as possible can individually verify this for themselves. We do not know or specify what specific physical laws exist within this ''observer-specific'' domain, but come up with a number of different tests to cover as many theories as possible.
Quantum Mechanics notoriously faces a measurement problem, the problem that the unitary time evolution, encoded in its dynamical equations, together with the kinematical structure of the theory generally implies the non-existence \nof definite measurement outcomes. There have been multiple suggestions to solve this problem, among them the so called many worlds interpretation that originated with the work of Hugh Everett III. According to it, the quantum state and time evolution fully and accurately describe nature as it is, implying that under certain conditions multiple measurement outcomes that are seemingly mutually exclusive can be realized at the same time – but as different 'worlds' contained in a global, quantum mechanical structure, sometimes referred to as 'the multiverse'. The many worlds interpretation has, however, been confronted with serious difficulties over the course of its development, some of which were solved by the advent of decoherence theory. The present thesis critically investi- \ngates the state of play on a key remaining problem of the many worlds interpretation, the problem of the meaning and quantification of probabilities in a quantum multiverse. Recent attempts of deriving the pivotal statistical ingredient of quantum mechanics, Born’s rule, from either principles of decision theory or from quantum mechanics alone, supplemented with a few general premises about \nprobability are analyzed and their premises are scrutinized. It will be argued that, though both approaches yield promising results, they both ultimately fail \nto clearly establish the validity of Born’s rule in the context of the many worlds interpretation. It is hence suggested that further research on this problem is indicated.
Since the 1970s, the Everett-Wheeler many-worlds interpretation (MWI) of Quantum Mechanics (1955) has been much in the news. One wonders about the worlds in question, their branches, their splittings, their number. It is most often ignored that this language is not that of Everett, whom Wheeler very quickly stopped supporting. Moreover, for some interpreters, the real meaning of Everett ideas is not the coexistence of many worlds, but the existence of a single quantum one. In this context, what should we think of attempts to verify Everett thesis? What about the connexion between MWI and the cosmological multiverse? How to understand the links between the quantum world and the classical one? This article tries to answer some of these questions.