Extracting information from a quantum system inevitably requires the performance of a measurement, and it is no surprise that the theory of measurement plays a central role in our subject. The physical nature of the measurement process remains one of the great philosophical problems in the formulation of quantum theory. Fortunately, however, it is sufficient for us to take a pragmatic view by asking what measurements are possible and how the theory describes them, without addressing the physical mechanism of the measurement process. This is the approach we shall adopt. We shall find that it leads us to a powerful and general description of both the probabilities associated with measurement outcomes and the manner in which the observation transforms the quantum state of the measured system. The simplest form of measurement was given a mathematical formulation by von Neumann, and we shall refer to measurements of this type as von Neumann measurements or projective measurements. It is this description of measurements that is usually introduced in elementary quantum theory courses. We start with an observable quantity A represented by a Hermitian operator Â, the eigenvalues of which are the possible results of the measurement of A. The relationship between the operator, its eigenstates {|λnñ}, and its (real) eigenvalues {λn} is expressed by the eigenvalue equation . . . Â |λn_ = λn|λn_. (4.1) . . .
Quantum-mechanical constraints on information transfer in measuring systems and their influence on measurement results studied. As the example, measurement of binary observable
Sz of object
S by measuring apparatus
A considered. It's shown that during the measurement these constraints obstacle the acquisition of information by
A, characterizing purity of
S ensemble. Due to it,
A can't discriminate pure and mixed
S ensembles with the same
Sz expectation value. In algebraic measurement ansatz by Emch such information loss results in stochastic
Sz measurement outcomes for pure
S ensemble, their probabilities obey to Born postulate, i.e. it corresponds to quantum state collapse. Account of
A state decoherence doesn't change obtained results principally.
A mixed state may be represented in many different ways as a mixture of pure states ρ=∑pi∣ψi⟩⟨ψi∣. The mixing problem in quantum mechanics asks the characterization of the probability distribution (pi) and the mixed states (ρi) such that ρ=∑piρi for any given mixed state ρ. Some constraints based on eigenvalues of the mixed states are established in uni-party case [see Nielsen, Phys. Rev. A. 63, 052308 (2000), 63, 022144 (2000), Nielsern and Vidal Quantum Inf. Comput. 1 76 (2001)]. We develop some new invariant sets for bipartite mixed states under local unitary operations, which are independent of eigenvalues, and prove some strong constraints based on these invariant sets for the mixing problem in bipartite case. This exhibits a remarkable difference from the uni-party case.
The quantum measurement problems are discussed from a new perspective.
One of the main ideas of this work is that the basic entities of our world are various types of particles, elementary or composite. It follows that each elementary process, hence each measurement process at its core, is a spacetime, pointlike, event. Another key idea is that, when a microsystem
ψ gets into contact with the experimental device, factorization of
ψ rapidly fails and entangled mixed states appear. The wave functions for the microsystem-apparatus coupled systems for different measurement outcomes then lack overlapping spacetime support. It means that the aftermath of each measurement is a single term in the sum: a ``wave-function collapse.
Our discussion leading to a diagonal density matrix,
ρ=diag(∣c1∣2,…,∣cn∣2,…) shows how the information encoded in the wave function
∣ψ⟩=∑ncn∣n⟩ gets transcribed, via entanglement with the experimental device and environment, into the relative frequencies
Pn=∣cn∣2 for various experimental results
F=fn.
These results represent the first, significant steps towards filling in the logical gaps in the standard interpretation based on Born's rule, and replacing it with a more natural one. Accepting objective reality of quantum fluctuations, independent of any experiments, and independently of human presence, one renounces the idea that in a fundamental, complete theory of Nature the result of each single experiment must necessarily be predictable.
A few well-known puzzles such as the Schr\odinger cat conundrum and the EPR paradox are briefly reviewed: they can all be naturally explained away.
Ever since the beginning of quantum mechanics, the measurement problem has been a subject of sometimes discontinued but nevertheless recurrent concern. As students, most physicists have raised questions about it, but the spectacular and renewed successes of quantum theory were a strong incentive for them to work out applications without further worrying about foundations. In each generation, however, some dissatisfaction reemerges, which leads to slow progress, and we may expect that the measurement problem will some day be cleared up rather than forgotten. The situation recalls statistical mechanics, the foundations of which still give rise to scientific discussions, in spite of more than one century’s achievements. Actually, the paradoxes of irreversibility and of Maxwell’s demon share some common features with quantum measurements, to wit, they involve probabilities in a crucial fashion and their explanation requires elucidating the role of the observer.
The degree of non-Markovianity of quantum processes has been characterized in several different ways in the recent literature. However, the relationship between the non-Markovian behavior and the flow of information between the system and the environment through an entropic measure has not been yet established. We propose an entanglement-based measure of non-Markovianity by employing the concept of assisted knowledge, where the environment
E, acquires information about a system
S, by means of its measurement apparatus
A. The assisted knowledge, based on the accessible information in terms of von Neumann entropy, monotonically increases in time for all Markovian quantum processes. We demonstrate that the signatures of non-Markovianity can be captured by the nonmonotonic behavior of the assisted knowledge. We explore this scenario for a two-level system undergoing a relaxation process, through an experimental implementation using an optical approach that allows full access to the state of the environment.