It is shown how Adler's trace dynamics can be applied to stochastic mechanics and other complex classical dynamical systems. Emergent non-commutivity due to the fractal nature of sample trajectories is closely related to the fact that the forward and backward time derivatives are different for these diffusions. A new variational approach to stochastic mechanics based on trace dynamics is introduced. It is shown that Yasue's method and Guerra and Morato's method can both be generalized to allow for any diffusion constant in a stochastic model of Schrodinger's equation, and that they can all also describe dissipative diffusion. Then it is shown that the trace dynamical theory seems to only describe dissipative diffusion unless an extra quantum mechanical potential term is added to the Hamiltonian. The differential space theory of Wiener and Siegel is reconsidered as a useful tool in this framework, and is generalized to stochastic processes instead of deterministic ones for the hidden trajectories of observables. It is proposed that the natural measure space for Wiener-Siegel theory is Haar measure for random unitary matrices. A new interpretation of the polychotomic algorithm is given.
It is shown how Adler's trace dynamics can be applied to stochastic mechanics and other complex classical dynamical systems. Emergent non-commutivity due to the fractal nature of sample trajectories is closely related to the fact that the forward and backward time derivatives are different for these diffusions. A new variational approach to stochastic mechanics based on trace dynamics is introduced. It is shown that Yasue's method and Guerra and Morato's method can both be generalized to allow for any diffusion constant in a stochastic model of Schrodinger's equation, and that they can all also describe dissipative diffusion. Then it is shown that the trace dynamical theory seems to only describe dissipative diffusion unless an extra quantum mechanical potential term is added to the Hamiltonian. The differential space theory of Wiener and Siegel is reconsidered as a useful tool in this framework, and is generalized to stochastic processes instead of deterministic ones for the hidden trajectories of observables. It is proposed that the natural measure space for Wiener-Siegel theory is Haar measure for random unitary matrices. A new interpretation of the polychotomic algorithm is given.
The stochastic theory of non-relativistic quantum mechanics presented here relies heavily upon the theory of stochastic processes, with its definitions, theorems and specific vocabulary as well. Its main hypothesis states indeed that the classical trajectories of the particles are identical to the sample functions of a diffusion Markov process, whose conditional probability density is proposed as a substitute for the wave function. The Schroedinger equation and the so-called Nelson equations are used to determine the diffusion tensor and the drift vectors characteristic of such a process. It is then possible to write down the forward and backward Kolmogorov equations that are used to determine the conditional probability density, as well as the Fokker-Planck equation that is used to determine the normal probability density. This method is applied to several simple cases and the results obtained are compared with those of the orthodox theory. Among the most important differences let us mention that any system evolving freely from any original state returns spontaneously to its ground state, that the definitions of the particles velocities and momenta are impossible because the sample functions of a diffusion Markov process nowhere possess a derivative with respect to time and that the so-called collapse of the wave function is a mere mirage explained by the updating choice between new and older initial conditions in the resolution of partial differential equations. We finally attempt to extend the proposed theory to the domain of the relativistic quantum mechanics. It is promising but is clearly unfinished because it has not been possible up to now to solve the Nelson and Kolmogorov equations, except in the very simple case of a free particle.
Starting from the quantum stochastic differential equations of Hudson and Parthasarathy [Commun. Math. Phys. 93, 301 (1984)] and exploiting the Wiener-Itô-Segal isomorphism between the boson Fock reservoir space Γ(L2(R+)⊗(Cn⊕Cn)) and the Hilbert space L2(μ), where μ is the Wiener probability measure of a complex n-dimensional vector-valued standard Brownian motion {B(t),t≥0}, we derive a non-linear stochastic Schrödinger equation describing a classical diffusion of states of a quantum system, driven by the Brownian motion B. Changing this Brownian motion by an appropriate Girsanov transformation, we arrive at the Gisin-Percival state diffusion equation [N. Gisin and J. Percival, J. Phys. A 167, 315 (1992)]. This approach also yields an explicit solution of the Gisin-Percival equation, in terms of the Hudson-Parthasarathy unitary process and a randomized Weyl displacement process. Irreversible dynamics of system density operators described by the well-known Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad master equation is unraveled by coarse-graining over the Gisin-Percival quantum state trajectories.
In this paper we establish three variational principles that provide new foundations for Nelson’s stochastic mechanics in the case of nonrelativistic particles without spin. The resulting variational picture is much richer and of a different nature with respect to the one previously considered in the literature. We first develop two stochastic variational principles whose Hamilton–Jacobi-like equations are precisely the two coupled partial differential equations that are obtained from the Schrödinger equation (Madelung equations). The two problems are zero-sum, noncooperative, stochastic differential games that are familiar in the control theory literature. They are solved here by means of a new, absolutely elementary method based on Lagrange functionals. For both games the saddle-point equilibrium solution is given by the Nelson’s process and the optimal controls for the two competing players are precisely Nelson’s current velocity v and osmotic velocity u, respectively. The first variational principle includes as special cases both the Guerra–Morato variational principle [Phys. Rev. D 27, 1774 (1983)] and Schrödinger original variational derivation of the time-independent equation. It also reduces to the classical least action principle when the intensity of the underlying noise tends to zero. It appears as a saddle-point action principle. In the second variational principle the action is simply the difference between the initial and final configurational entropy. It is therefore a saddle-point entropy production principle. From the variational principles it follows, in particular, that both v(x,t) and u(x,t) are gradients of appropriate principal functions. In the variational principles, the role of the background noise has the intuitive meaning of attempting to contrast the more classical mechanical features of the system by trying to maximize the action in the first principle and by trying to increase the entropy in the second. Combining the two variational principles, we get the quantum Hamilton principle, i.e., a variational characterization of the logarithm of the wave function ψ. The Lagrangian is the Lagrangian of classical mechanics with the complex-valued velocity v−iu replacing the classical velocity. The dynamics is given by a stochastic differential equation for real-valued diffusions with complex-valued drift and driving noise processes. From the variational principle we derive a Newton-type law. We finally define the momentum process and show that its mean and variance coincide with those of the quantum momentum operator.
This paper proposes an interpretation of quantum mechanics, relying on the time-symmetric stochastic dynamics of quantum particles and on non-classical probability theory. Our main purpose is to demonstrate that the wave function and its complex conjugate can be interpreted as complex probability distributions in two complex diffusion equations related to non-real forward and backward in time stochastic motions respectively. We say non-real because Schroedinger forward and backward diffusions describe both reversible (real trajectories) and irreversible trajectories (non-real trajectories). The reversible trajectories are the only real trajectories and are given by the intersection of those forward and backward processes. It turns out that if we translate this intersection using set-theoretic language, we are led to a reversible diffusion described by Born rule probabilities. This proposal is useful also for explaining more about the role of complex numbers in quantum mechanics that produces this so-called "wave-like" nature of quantum reality. Our perspective also challenges the notion of physical superposition and aims at a derivation of superposition principle not based on the linearity of Schroedinger's equation but relying on pure probability theory. Moreover, it is suggested that, embracing the idea of stochastic processes in quantum theory, explains the reasons for the appearance of classical behavior in large objects, in contrast to the quantum behavior of small ones. In other words, we claim that a combination of a probabilistic and no-ontic view (neither epistemic though) of the wave function with a stochastic hidden-variables approach, may provide some insight into the quantum physical reality and potentially establish the groundwork for a novel interpretation of quantum mechanics.
A history of the discovery of `new' quantum mechanics and the paradoxes of its probabilistic interpretation are briefly reviewed from the modern point of view of quantum probability and information. Modern quantum theory, which has been developed during the last 20 years for the treatment of quantum open systems including quantum noise, decoherence, quantum diffusions and spontaneous jumps occurring under continuous in time observation, is not yet a part of the standard curriculum of quantum physics. It is argued that the conventional formalism of quantum mechanics is insufficient for the description of quantum events, such as spontaneous decays say, and the new experimental phenomena related to individual quantum measurements, but they have all received an adequate mathematical treatment in quantum stochastics of open systems. Moreover, the only reasonable probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics put forward by Max Born was, in fact, in irreconcilable contradiction with traditional mechanical reality and causality. This led to numerous quantum paradoxes, some of them due to the great inventors of quantum theory such as Einstein and Schrödinger. They are reconsidered in this paper from the modern point of view of quantum stochastics and information. The development of quantum measurement theory, initiated by von Neumann, indicated a possibility for resolution of this interpretational crisis by divorcing the algebra of the dynamical generators and the algebra of the actual observables, or Bell's be ables. It is shown that within this approach quantum causality can be rehabilitated in the form of a superselection rule for compatibility of the actual histories with the potential future. This rule, together with the self-compatibility of the measurements ensuring the consistency of the histories, is called the nondemolition, or causality principle in modern quantum theory. The application of this rule in the form of dynamical commutation relations leads to the derivation of the von Neumann projection postulate, and also to the more general reductions, instantaneous, spontaneous, and even continuous in time. This gives a dynamical solution, in the form of the quantum stochastic filtering equations, of the notorious measurement problem which was tackled unsuccessfully by many famous physicists starting with Schrödinger and Bohr. It has been recently proved that the quantum stochastic model for the continuous in time measurements is equivalent to a Dirac type boundary-value problem for the secondary quantized input `offer waves from future' in one extra dimension, and to a reduction of the algebra of the consistent histories of past events to an Abelian subalgebra for the `trajectories of the output particles'. This supports the corpuscular-wave duality in the form of the thesis that everything in the future are quantized waves, while everything in the past are trajectories of the recorded particles.