Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function
| dc.creator | Sorkin, Rafael D. | |
| dc.date | 2006-10-24 | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2026-07-07T10:43:02Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2026-07-07T10:43:02Z | |
| dc.description | When suitably generalized and interpreted, the path-integral offers an alternative to the more familiar quantal formalism based on state-vectors, selfadjoint operators, and external observers. Mathematically one generalizes the path-integral-as-propagator to a {\it quantal measure} $μ$ on the space $Ω$ of all ``conceivable worlds'', and this generalized measure expresses the dynamics or law of motion of the theory, much as Wiener measure expresses the dynamics of Brownian motion. Within such ``histories-based'' schemes new, and more ``realistic'' possibilities open up for resolving the philosophical problems of the state-vector formalism. In particular, one can dispense with the need for external agents by locating the predictive content of $μ$ in its sets of measure zero: such sets are to be ``precluded''. But unrestricted application of this rule engenders contradictions. One possible response would remove the contradictions by circumscribing the application of the preclusion concept. Another response, more in the tradition of ``quantum logic'', would accommodate the contradictions by dualizing $Ω$ to a space of ``co-events'' and effectively identifying reality with an element of this dual space. | |
| dc.description | plainTeX, 24 pages, no figures. To appear in a special volume of {\it Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General} entitled ``The Quantum Universe'' and dedicated to Giancarlo Ghirardi on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Most current version is available at http://www.physics.syr.edu/~sorkin/some.papers/ (or wherever my home-page may be) | |
| dc.identifier | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0610204 | |
| dc.identifier | http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0610204 | |
| dc.identifier | J.Phys.A40:3207-3222,2007 | |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.1088/1751-8113/40/12/S20 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/182156 | |
| dc.subject | Quantum Physics | |
| dc.subject | General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology | |
| dc.subject | High Energy Physics - Theory | |
| dc.subject | Logic | |
| dc.title | Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function | |
| dc.type | text |