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Transmission as the Physical Basis of Persistence: An Exploratory Test of the LOP-T Hypothesis Using Quantum Darwinism Experiments

Fernando Cesar Coelho Coutinho

Published Jul 16, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The emergence and persistence of observable structures remain central questions in physics, information theory, and complex systems. This work proposes the Law of Persistence through Transmission (LOP-T), a minimal informational hypothesis stating that the persistence of a physical structure is proportional to its ability to transmit information to an environment capable of recording it redundantly. The hypothesis is tested against three independent experimental Quantum Darwinism platforms — a photonic quantum simulator (Chen et al., 2019), a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond coupled to its nuclear spin bath (Unden et al., 2019), and a superconducting quantum processor (Zhu et al., 2025) — comprising a total of 65 independently analyzed states across static and time-resolved regimes. Transmission is estimated operationally from the Holevo bound normalized by its saturation value, and from redundancy-based estimators of increasing fragment order; persistence is estimated both from a record-based proxy built from Holevo information and quantum discord, and from an independent pointer-state tomography proxy. Across every platform and every estimator tested, transmission predicts persistence with strong and statistically significant explanatory power, reaching R^2=0.928 (operational persistence, N=55, p=5.62×10^(-32)) and R^2=0.997 (pointer-state persistence, N=10, p=2.12×10^(-11)) in the static regime, and up to R^2=0.985 in the early-time regime and R^2=0.924 over the full temporal window in a 601-point time-resolved analysis of the NV-center system. Four redundancy-order estimators are compared systematically against two coarser discretized alternatives, and the finer estimators are consistently found to explain more variance, closely tracking the redundancy plateau characteristic of the quantum Darwinism regime. Null and alternative control models are used throughout to rule out circular or trivial explanations. The results support the operational form of LOP-T as a robust, cross-platform empirical regularity, while its stronger temporal and microphysical formulations remain open theoretical extensions for future work.

DOI
10.5281/zenodo.21385410

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The emergence and persistence of observable structures remain central questions in physics, information theory, and complex systems. This work proposes the Law of Persistence through Transmission (LOP-T), a minimal informational hypothesis stating that the persistence of a physical structure is proportional to its ability to transmit information to an environment capable of recording it redundantly. The hypothesis is tested against three independent experimental Quantum Darwinism platforms — a photonic quantum simulator (Chen et al., 2019), a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond coupled to its nuclear spin bath (Unden et al., 2019), and a superconducting quantum processor (Zhu et al., 2025) — comprising a total of 65 independently analyzed states across static and time-resolved regimes. Transmission is estimated operationally from the Holevo bound normalized by its saturation value, and from redundancy-based estimators of increasing fragment order; persistence is estimated both from a record-based proxy built from Holevo information and quantum discord, and from an independent pointer-state tomography proxy. Across every platform and every estimator tested, transmission predicts persistence with strong and statistically significant explanatory power, reaching R^2=0.928 (operational persistence, N=55, p=5.62×10^(-32)) and R^2=0.997 (pointer-state persistence, N=10, p=2.12×10^(-11)) in the static regime, and up to R^2=0.985 in the early-time regime and R^2=0.924 over the full temporal window in a 601-point time-resolved analysis of the NV-center system. Four redundancy-order estimators are compared systematically against two coarser discretized alternatives, and the finer estimators are consistently found to explain more variance, closely tracking the redundancy plateau characteristic of the quantum Darwinism regime. Null and alternative control models are used throughout to rule out circular or trivial explanations. The results support the operational form of LOP-T as a robust, cross-platform empirical regularity, while its stronger temporal and microphysical formulations remain open theoretical extensions for future work.
Abstract Classical objectivity arises when many independent observers can retrieve the same information about a quantum system without disturbing it. Quantum Darwinism (QD) explains this by treating the environment as a communication channel that redundantly broadcasts information about pointer observables. We develop an operational framework for quantifying this redundancy through the lens of functional information. By introducing a one-sided adequacy criterion based on the Holevo bound, we measure the \emph{abundance} of environment fragments that individually contain nearly all classically accessible pointer information. Using a heterogeneous pure–dephasing model, we sample fragments to extract onset statistics and apply isotonic regression to obtain stable estimates of redundancy and its functional-information counterpart FIQD=log⁡2RδFI_{QD}=\log_2 R_\deltaFIQD​=log2​Rδ​. The results reveal a generic onset–plateau structure: redundancy grows rapidly at early times, then saturates at a capacity-limited ceiling, universally across adequacy tolerances. We further connect FIQDFI_{QD}FIQD​ to thermodynamic bounds, showing that each additional bit of redundancy implies exponentially increasing minimal heat costs for record stabilization. This approach provides a conservative, model-agnostic measure of emergent classicality, suitable for both theoretical analysis and experimental probing.
Quantum Darwinism explains effective classical objectivity through the selective proliferation of information about preferred quantum states into multiple environmental fragments. Its mature formulations operate within quantum theory, using a system-environment decomposition, decoherence or einselection, and information-theoretic or broadcast-structure criteria for redundant accessibility.This paper asks an upstream question from Registration Theory (RT): what makes a physical distinction a record before that record is described as information available to an observer? Canonical RT answers that retained registration is persistent organization constraining later evolution, that a distinction becomes a physical record only when it remains consequential, and that persistent physical organization is prior to information extracted from it.The paper assembles a theorem-backed finite-model chain now available in the RT corpus. Canonical ACRF dynamics supplies write-retain-read consequential history. The exact finite-amplitude ACRF-4 quotient identifies a nine-dimensional host-host-boundary state. The certified consequence-minimality theorem (DOI 10.6084/m9.figshare.34063464) shows that the retained relational boundary contributes irreducible future-consequence directions. The spectrum-preserving ACRF-8 redundant-record theorem (DOI 10.6084/m9.figshare.34063500) then proves an explicit local witness in which one quotient-valid source distinction is written into two disjoint retained fragments that are locally recoverable, counterfactually separable, and independently readable, giving RRT(q)≥2R_{RT}(q)\ge 2RRT​(q)≥2 under the stated criteria.The resulting distinction from Quantum Darwinism is precise but bounded. RT recordhood is consequence-based, while Darwinian objectivity is an accessibility-and-redundancy criterion formulated within quantum theory. The ACRF witness demonstrates redundant retained record formation without assuming Hilbert space, density operators, mutual information, decoherence, einselection, Born probabilities, or an observer-defined environment. Therefore, multiple persistent records of one distinction are not definitionally identical to Quantum-Darwinian redundancy.The paper does not claim that Quantum Darwinism is false or that RT has derived quantum mechanics, decoherence, Born probabilities, a mutual-information redundancy plateau, or macroscopic objectivity. Instead, it proposes a disciplined hierarchy: consequential distinction → retention → persistent record → branching → redundant retained records → redundant accessibility → environmental objectivity. The final two steps remain open in RT. A future bridge must dynamically select and scale multi-host redundancy and map consequence-bearing RT records into quantum environmental fragments that satisfy decoherence and strong objectivity conditions.
This paper examines the role of Quantum Darwinism in explaining the emergence of classical objectivity within The Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Decoherence explains why macroscopically distinct alternatives become practically inaccessible to local observers, but it does not by itself explain why multiple observers can independently agree on the same classical state. Quantum Darwinism strengthens this account by describing how information about stable pointer states becomes redundantly encoded in environmental fragments. However, this paper argues that redundancy is necessary for objectivity but not enough to explain objectivity. A simple qubit test model implemented in Qiskit is used to demonstrate redundant environmental coding. The discussion connects this claim to Strong Quantum Darwinism, Spectrum Broadcast Structure, and Quantum Discord, which sharpen the distinction between mere correlation and objective classical records. Finally, this paper proposes phase anti-redundancy as a future direction; While pointer state information becomes locally redundant, cross-branch phase information appears to remain globally encoded and increasingly difficult to recover. This suggests that branch objectivity may require not only redundant classical records, but also the fact that cross-branch phase information is encoded in global correlations rather than in locally accessible environmental fragments.
Quantum Darwinism is a leading framework for explaining how classical reality emerges from a quantum universe—the environment redundantly encodes the pointer state information of quantum systems, enabling multiple independent observers to reach consensus about reality. However, a fundamental question has remained unanswered: Why does the environment possess this capacity for redundant recording? This paper proposes, within the information-potential conversion framework, that the redundant recording mechanism of quantum Darwinism is the physical realization of the information-potential conversion consensus protocol—the environment, acting as the physical medium for information-potential conversion, redundantly encodes system information, providing consistent conversion records for independent information processing units, from which classical reality emerges. Based on this interpretation, three testable quantitative predictions are proposed: (1) In superconducting quantum circuits, when system complexity exceeds a critical threshold, the efficiency of redundant recording should exhibit an abrupt transition—a signal of the information-potential conversion phase transition of the consensus protocol from “quantum critical” to “classically locked”; (2) There should exist a precise linear relationship between functional information and information-potential conversion energy consumption: each additional bit of functional information doubles the minimum heat dissipation required for record stabilization; (3) Consensus strength—the stability of classical reality—should be positively correlated with the number of information processing units participating in the consensus protocol, and a critical number exists at which the consensus phase transition occurs. quantum Darwinism, information-potential conversion, consensus protocol, classical emergence, redundant recording, functional information
A fact of the classical world is public property: many agents can learn it without erasing or revising it. Quantum mechanics offers no such notion, since unknown states cannot be copied and measurement disturbs. This review develops quantum Darwinism’s resolution, which locates classicality in the environment as a broadcast medium carrying independent records of an observable. The framework is assembled in information-theoretic terms: quantum mutual information between system and environment fragments, redundancy at an information deficit, the Holevo quantity separating accessible from total correlation, spectrum broadcast structure as the record-bearing state, and the quantum Chernoff information fixing the rate of accumulation. A proposition proving that spectrum broadcast structure forces the classical plateau fragment by fragment is given. Three media — spin registers, oscillator baths, and scattered photons — are examined, followed by account of a record’s life cycle: formation, degradation under intra-environmental scrambling and information backflow, and counterexamples where decoherence proceeds while no record is deposited. The relation between redundancy and consensus, consistent histories, laboratory evidence, and unresolved problems are treated in closing.
Quantum Darwinism recognizes the role of the environment as a communication channel: Decoherence can selectively amplify information about the pointer states of a system of interest (preventing access to complementary information about their superpositions) and can make records of this information accessible to many observers. This redundancy explains the emergence of objective, classical reality in our quantum Universe. Here, we demonstrate that the amplification of information in realistic spin environments can be quantified by the quantum Chernoff information, which characterizes the distinguishability of partial records in individual environment subsystems. We show that, except for a set of initial states of measure zero, the environment always acquires redundant information. Moreover, the Chernoff information captures the rich behavior of amplification in both finite and infinite spin environments, from quadratic growth of the redundancy to oscillatory behavior. These results will considerably simplify experimental testing of quantum Darwinism, e.g., using nitrogen vacancies in diamond.