A minimalist pilot-wave model for quantum electrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper develops a minimalist pilot-wave model for quantum electrodynamics that uses beables only for the electromagnetic field, successfully reproducing quantum predictions while simplifying the ontology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel pilot-wave model for QED with beables solely for bosonic fields, simplifying the representation of fermionic degrees of freedom.

Findings

Model reproduces quantum electrodynamics predictions

Beables are only for electromagnetic fields

Framework allows extension to include fermionic beables

Abstract

We present a way to construct a pilot-wave model for quantum electrodynamics. The idea is to introduce beables corresponding only to the bosonic degrees of freedom and not to the fermionic degrees of freedom of the quantum state. We show that this is sufficient to reproduce the quantum predictions. The beables will be field beables corresponding to the electromagnetic field and they will be introduced in a similar way to that of Bohm's model for the free electromagnetic field. Our approach is analogous to the situation in non-relativistic quantum theory, where Bell treated spin not as a beable but only as a property of the wavefunction. After presenting this model we also discuss a simple way for introducing additional beables that represent the fermionic degrees of freedom.