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arXiv:quant-ph/9710042

An Indication From the Magnitude of CP Violations that Gravitation is a Possible Cause of Wave-Function Collapse

Daniel I. Fivel

Published Oct 16, 1997• 6 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We consider experimental evidence for the hypothesis that the Planck energy, $E_p \approx 10^{19}GeV$, sets the scale $ε$ at which wave function collapse causes deviations from linear Schrödinger evolution. With a few plausible assumptions about the collapse process, we first show that the observed CP violation in $K_L$ decay implies a lower bound on $ε$ remarkably close to $E_p$. If the bound is saturated, the entire CP violation is due to collapse and a prediction made that the branching ratio for CP violation in the B meson decay will be $γ\approx 10^{-5}$. We then show that the assumptions are consequences of a simple non-linear, stochastic modification of the Schrödinger equation with $ε$ setting the scale of the non-linearity.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/9710042

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We discuss bound state excitation in models where wave function collapse is a physical process. Consequences of a feasible photon counting experiment are spelled out, were an upper limit to be found on the rate of anomalous photon emission from solid matter that is better than 1 photon/sec cc. It is also pointed out that experiments already performed, which give an upper bound on the rate of nucleon decay, can have significant consequences for such models. We show how these experimental results could be considered to rule out the original version of the collapse models, and support a version in which the rate of collapse is proportional to the mass, indicative of a gravitational mechanism.
The assumption that wave function collapse is a real occurrence has very interesting consequences - both experimental and theoretical. Besides predicting observable deviations from linear evolution, it implies that these deviations must originate in nondeterministic effects at the elementary level in order to prevent superluminal signaling, as demonstrated by Gisin. This lack of determinism implies that information cannot be instantiated in a reproducible form in isolated microsystems (as illustrated by the No-cloning theorem). By stipulating that information is a reproducible and referential property of physical systems, one can formulate the no-signaling principle in strictly physical terms as a prohibition of the acquisition of information about spacelike-separated occurrences. This formulation provides a new perspective on the relationship between relativity and spacetime structure, and it imposes tight constraints on the way in which collapse effects are induced. These constraints indicate that wave function collapse results from (presumably small) nondeterministic deviations from linear evolution associated with nonlocally entangling interactions. This hypothesis can be formalized in a stochastic collapse equation and used to assess the feasibility of testing for collapse effects.
Resolving the tension between quantum superpositions and the uniqueness of the classical world is a major open problem.One possibility, which is extensively explored both theoretically and experimentally, is that quantum linearity breaks above a given scale.Theoretically, this possibility is predicted by collapse models.They provide quantitative information on where violations of the superposition principle become manifest.Here we show that the lower bound on the collapse parameter λ, coming from the analysis of the human visual process, is ∼7 ± 2 orders of magnitude stronger than the original bound, in agreement with more recent analysis.This implies that the collapse becomes effective with systems containing ∼10 4 -10 5 nucleons, and thus falls within the range of testability with present-day technology.We also compare the spectrum of the collapsing field with those of known cosmological fields, showing that a typical cosmological random field can yield an efficient wave function collapse.
It has been suggested that the nonlinear Schrödinger–Newton equation might approximate the coupling of quantum mechanics with gravitation, particularly in the context of the Møller–Rosenfeld semiclassical theory. Numerical results for the spherically symmetric, time-dependent, single-particle case are presented, clarifying and extending previous work on the subject. It is found that, for a particle mass greater than 1.14(ℏ 2 /( G σ)) 1/3 , a wave packet of width σ partially 'collapses' to a groundstate solution found by Moroz, Penrose and Tod, with excess probability dispersing away. However, for a mass less than 1.14(ℏ 2 /( G σ)) 1/3 , the entire wave packet appears to spread like a free particle, albeit more slowly. It is argued that, on some scales (lower than the Planck scale), this theory predicts significant deviation from conventional (linear) quantum mechanics. However, owing to the difficulty of controlling quantum coherence on one hand, and the weakness of gravity on the other, definitive experimental falsification poses a technologically formidable challenge.
At present, there are two possible, and equally plausible, explanations for the physics of quantum measurement. The first explanation, known as the many-worlds interpretation, does not require any modification of quantum mechanics, and asserts that at the time of measurement the Universe splits into many branches, one branch for every possible alternative. The various branches do not interfere with each other because of decoherence, thus providing a picture broadly consistent with the observed Universe. The second explanation, which requires quantum mechanics to be modified from its presently known form, is that at the time of measurement the wavefunction collapses into one of the possible alternatives. The two explanations are mutually exclusive, and up until now, no theoretical reasoning has been put forward to choose one explanation over the other. In this article, we provide an argument which implies that the collapse interpretation is favored over the many-worlds interpretation. Our starting point is the assertion (which we justify) that there ought to exist a reformulation of quantum mechanics which does not refer to a classical spacetime manifold. The need for such a reformulation implies that quantum theory becomes nonlinear on the Planck mass/energy scale. Standard linear quantum mechanics is an approximation to this nonlinear theory, valid at energy scales much smaller than the Planck scale. Using ideas based on noncommutative differential geometry, we develop such a reformulation and derive a nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which can explain collapse of the wavefunction. We also obtain an expression for the lifetime of a quantum superposition. We suggest ideas for an experimental test of this model.
In this paper we propose to associate a temporal two-component wave-function to the decay process of meson particles. This simple quantum model provides a good estimation of the CP symmetry violation parameter. This result is based on our previous paper ("Two-Level Friedrichs model and Kaonic phenomenology", Physics Letters A 362, 100-104 (2007)) where we have shown that the two-level Friedrichs Hamiltonian model makes it possible to provide a qualitatively correct phenomenological model of kaons physics. In this previous paper, we derived a violation parameter that is 14 times larger than the measured quantity. In the present paper we improve our estimation of the violation and obtain the right order of magnitude. The improvement results from a renormalized superposition of the probability amplitudes describing short and long exponential decays. The renormalization occurs because the amplitudes that we are dealing with are associated to the decay rate, and not to the integrated decay rate or survival probability as is usually the case in standard approaches to CP-violation. We also compare with recent experimental data for the mesons D and B and also there the agreement between our model and experimental data is quite satisfying.