Overlaps in pilot wave field theories

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in pilot wave field theories, the overlap between macroscopically different states diminishes rapidly with increasing particle number, supporting the theories' consistency with quantum field predictions.

Contribution

It provides numerical evidence and plausibility arguments showing the overlap in field theory states decreases exponentially with particle number, addressing recent doubts.

Findings

Overlap decreases exponentially with particle number

Overlap becomes negligible for small particle counts

Supports pilot wave theories' consistency with quantum predictions

Abstract

Recently doubts have been raised about the ability of pilot wave theories with field ontology to recover the predictions of quantum field theory. In particular, Struyve has questioned that the overlap between wave functionals of macroscopically different states with fixed particle number is really non-significant. With numerical computations and some further plausibility arguments we show that the overlap between n-particle states in field theory decreases almost exponentially with the number of particles and becomes non-significant already for small particle numbers.