The Copenhagen Interpretation Born Again

TL;DR

This paper proposes a new approach to quantum mechanics that explicitly models the Heisenberg cut, explaining the emergence of classical behavior and resolving foundational issues like the measurement problem.

Contribution

It introduces a stochastic formalism that makes the Heisenberg cut explicit and derives classical phenomena and the Born rule from quantum dynamics.

Findings

Accounts for classical limit phenomena like Newton's laws and statistical mechanics

Provides local descriptions of EPR experiments

Reintroduces a dynamical picture of thermalization

Abstract

An approach to quantum mechanics is developed which makes the Heisenberg cut between the deterministic microscopic quantum world and the partly deterministic, partly stochastic macroscopic world explicit. The microscopic system evolves according to the Schrodinger equation with stochastic behaviour arising when the system is probed by a set of coarse grained macroscopic observables whose resolution scale defines the Heisenberg cut. The resulting stochastic process can account for the different facets of the classical limit: Newton's laws (ergodicity broken); statistical mechanics of thermal ensembles (ergodic); and solve the measurement problem (partial ergodicity breaking). In particular, the usual rules of the Copenhagen interpretation, like the Born rule, emerge, along with completely local descriptions of EPR type experiments. The formalism also re-introduces a dynamical picture of equilibration and thermalization in quantum statistical mechanics and provides insight into how classical statistical mechanics can arise in the classical limit and in a way that alleviates various conceptual problems.