Glimpses of a solution to the measurement problem in quantum theory

Since the introduction of quantum mechanics, countless many have racked their brains over the interpretation of the theory. An answer to the measurement problem is part of the interpretation and consequently the problem has frequently been discussed. Some however do not see a measurement problem at all and hence the measurement problem problem was born: Does the measurement problem exist at all? Belavkin acknowledges a problem and has described a way to solve it in a difficult paper in 2007 (see [1]). His theory is not widely known, probably due to the complexity of his paper. Therefore it seems important to explain Belavkin’s framework in the most simple way and applied to the most simple examples to help it become more well-known and understood. Goal of this thesis is to formulate Belavkin’s framework in an easy way. In addition we try to understand several much used models in the quantum theory using his framework. This thesis is not an attempt to reconstruct or simplify the...Show moreSince the introduction of quantum mechanics, countless many have racked their brains over the interpretation of the theory. An answer to the measurement problem is part of the interpretation and consequently the problem has frequently been discussed. Some however do not see a measurement problem at all and hence the measurement problem problem was born: Does the measurement problem exist at all? Belavkin acknowledges a problem and has described a way to solve it in a difficult paper in 2007 (see [1]). His theory is not widely known, probably due to the complexity of his paper. Therefore it seems important to explain Belavkin’s framework in the most simple way and applied to the most simple examples to help it become more well-known and understood. Goal of this thesis is to formulate Belavkin’s framework in an easy way. In addition we try to understand several much used models in the quantum theory using his framework. This thesis is not an attempt to reconstruct or simplify the whole theory of Belavkin, only the discrete time and not the continuous time part. At the same time this is not a literature review of other ways to solve the measurement problem. The thesis has the following structure. The first section gives our view on the measurement problem. That gives directly our take on the measurement problem problem. Belavkin’s framework as we will use it in this thesis is constructed in the second section; it is used then in section 3 to give a simple but important application. The main part of the thesis is section 4 which shows that the master equation approach, often used in quantum optics, can be embedded in Belavkin’s theory. The constructive way we do this gives us machinery to give a Belavkin-type solution to the problem of modeling a Geiger counter.Show less

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Glimpses of a solution to the measurement problem in quantum theory