Mukherjee A, Gotur S, Aalberts J, van den Ende R, Mertens L, van Wezel J. Quantum State Reduction of General Initial States through Spontaneous Unitarity Violation.
ENTROPY (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2024;
26:131. [PMID:
38392387 PMCID:
PMC10887532 DOI:
10.3390/e26020131]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/29/2023] [Revised: 01/25/2024] [Accepted: 01/29/2024] [Indexed: 02/24/2024]
Abstract
The inability of Schrödinger's unitary time evolution to describe the measurement of a quantum state remains a central foundational problem. It was recently suggested that the unitarity of Schrödinger dynamics can be spontaneously broken, resulting in measurement as an emergent phenomenon in the thermodynamic limit. Here, we introduce a family of models for spontaneous unitarity violation that apply to generic initial superpositions over arbitrarily many states, using either single or multiple state-independent stochastic components. Crucially, we show that Born's probability rule emerges spontaneously in all cases.
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