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Temporal Global Correlations in Time-Symmetric Collapse Models

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Abstract

It has been recently argued that by Leifer and Pusey, and Price, that time-symmetric quantum mechanics must entail retrocausality. Adlam responds that such theories might also entail ‘spooky action at a distance’. This paper proposes a third alternative: time-symmetric quantum mechanics might entail temporal global correlations. Unlike the traditional analysis of time symmetries in quantum mechanics, which consider linear and unitary interpretations, this paper considers the time-symmetric collapse models advanced by Bedingham and Maroney. These models are specially interesting since it has been widely believed that collapse theories cannot be time-reversal invariant.

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Notes

  1. See also [30].

  2. Note that there is extended discussion about what is the proper characterisation of a time-reversal transformation in general and in QM in particular. This paper does not aim to delve into that debate, nor assessing whether the notion of time symmetry that one finds in [10, 17, 26] are the adequate ones according to this debate. The author leaves this issue for future research and recommends the analysis given by [18]. I thank an anonymous referee for pointing out this issue.

  3. The physical justifications and motivations for accepting this condition may be reasonably put into doubt. Nevertheless, this does not affect the main argument, as the time-symmetric collapse models that will be considered bellow meet it once we impose a totally mixed state as initial and final states.

  4. The case is not different in [14, 24].

  5. This approach is based on an idea originally suggested in [12]. Another alternative interpretation has been developed in terms of the mass-density ontology. See [5] and references therein.

  6. see [6], and references therein.

  7. For the complete proof see [10, 11].

  8. See Rodríguez-Warnier [27].

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Acknowledgements

I am deeply grateful to Ronnie Hermens and Guido Bacciagaluppi for their active supervision of this research and their committed role in training students in the philosophy of physics at Utrecht University. Of course, all the confusions and conceptual mistakes that might be found in this paper are exclusively mine. Many thanks also to F.A. Muller. I am grateful to Emily Adlam for her insightful comments on a version of the paper. The last stage of this publication was made possible through the support of the ID #62312 grant from the John Templeton Foundation, as part of the project ‘The Quantum Information Structure of Spacetime’ (QISS). The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation.

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  1. Department of Philosophy & Rotman Institute of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

    Pascal Rodríguez-Warnier

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Rodríguez-Warnier, P. Temporal Global Correlations in Time-Symmetric Collapse Models. Found Phys 53, 48 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-023-00688-9

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