Understanding sequential measurements in psi-epistemic ontological models

dc.contributor.advisorEmerson, Joseph
dc.contributor.authorRuebeck, Joshua
dc.date.accessioned2019-08-06T20:12:48Z
dc.date.available2019-08-06T20:12:48Z
dc.date.issued2019-08-06
dc.date.submitted2019-07-19
dc.description.abstractSince the famous debates of Einstein & Bohr, physicists have argued about the nature of the quantum state. Is it best thought of as describing the-way-things-are out there in the world, or merely as a description of our knowledge of such things? In more recent years, this has been termed the ψ-epistemic/ψ-ontic debate, and that distinction has been given a mathematical definition within the ontological models formalism. This formalism is a framework for describing a large class of interpretations of quantum mechanics. Here we show that consideration of sequential measurements, and the fact that the quantum state changes during measurements, has been a neglected topic in this area as it places nontrivial restrictions on the structure of ψ-epistemic ontological models. We do this by finding a general restriction on the structure of ψ-epistemic models, although not one that is strong enough to rule them out categorically. We then apply this restriction to all of the known examples of ψ-epistemic ontological models and show that they can’t represent sequential measurements. We also present a new version of the ontological models formalism, based on hidden Markov models, which we develop briefly and describe how it may be useful for either proving a no-go theorem (i.e. ‘ψ-epistemic models can’t exist’) or for learning more about the structure of ψ-epistemic models and how to construct them.en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10012/14845
dc.language.isoenen
dc.pendingfalse
dc.publisherUniversity of Waterlooen
dc.subjectquantum foundationsen
dc.subjectquantum physicsen
dc.subjectinterpretationsen
dc.subjectontological modelsen
dc.titleUnderstanding sequential measurements in psi-epistemic ontological modelsen
dc.typeMaster Thesisen
uws-etd.degreeMaster of Scienceen
uws-etd.degree.departmentPhysics and Astronomyen
uws-etd.degree.disciplinePhysics (Quantum Information)en
uws-etd.degree.grantorUniversity of Waterlooen
uws.contributor.advisorEmerson, Joseph
uws.contributor.affiliation1Faculty of Scienceen
uws.peerReviewStatusUnrevieweden
uws.published.cityWaterlooen
uws.published.countryCanadaen
uws.published.provinceOntarioen
uws.scholarLevelGraduateen
uws.typeOfResourceTexten

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