This is a list of this week’s papers on quantum foundations published in various journals or uploaded to preprint servers such as arxiv.org and PhilSci Archive.
Local Causality in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Spacetime
PhilSci-Archive: No conditions. Results ordered -Date Deposited.
on 2015-11-20 7:18pm GMT
Christian, Joy (2015) Local Causality in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Spacetime. [Preprint]
‘Shut up and comtemplate!’: Lucien Hardy׳s reasonable axioms for quantum theory
on 2015-11-19 5:01pm GMT
Publication date: Available online 18 November 2015
Source:Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics
Author(s): Olivier Darrigol
Since the beginning of quantum mechanics, attempts were made to derive it from simple natural axioms or assumptions. These reconstructions suffered from various defects, including the questionable naturalness or the overabundance of the axioms, the mathematical difficulty of the derivation, and the inclusion of a wider range of theories than just quantum mechanics. Recently, in 2001, Lucien Hardy propounded “five reasonable axioms” that seem to elude such criticism. The present paper purports to give a simplified version of this new foundation, to discuss Hardy׳s original version and subsequent variants by others authors, and to investigate the nature of the relevant axioms in light of their possible connection with correspondence arguments.
on 2015-11-18 3:00pm GMT
Author(s): Piotr Ćwikliński, Michał Studziński, Michał Horodecki, and Jonathan Oppenheim
Thermodynamic laws that are unique to quantum systems in a superposition of states have been derived using an information-theory approach.
[Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 210403] Published Wed Nov 18, 2015
Latest Results for Foundations of Physics
on 2015-11-17 12:00am GMT
Abstract
I argue that quantum optical experiments that purport to refute Bohr’s principle of complementarity (BPC) fail in their aim. Some of these experiments try to refute complementarity by refuting the so called particle–wave duality relations, which evolved from the Wootters–Zurek reformulation of BPC (WZPC). I therefore consider it important for my forgoing arguments to first recall the essential tenets of BPC, and to clearly separate BPC from WZPC, which I will argue is a direct contradiction of BPC. This leads to a need to consider the meaning of particle–wave duality relations and to question their fundamental status. I further argue (albeit, in opposition to BPC) that particle and wave complementary concepts are on a different footing than other pairs of complementary concepts.
The quantum source of space-time
on 2015-11-16 12:00am GMT
Many physicists believe that entanglement is the essence of quantum weirdness — and some now suspect that it may also be the essence of space-time geometry.
Nature 527 290 doi: 10.1038/527290a
