A Survey of Physical Principles Attempting to Define Quantum Mechanics

TL;DR

This survey reviews recent efforts to identify physical principles underlying quantum mechanics, highlighting the use of joint quasi-probability distributions as a unifying framework to understand and develop foundational principles.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of recent physical principles proposed for quantum mechanics and introduces joint quasi-probability distributions as a common representational basis.

Findings

Many principles have been proposed to define quantum mechanics

Joint quasi-probability distributions unify various principles

A common representation aids in understanding and developing principles

Abstract

Quantum mechanics, one of the most successful theories in the history of science, was created to account for physical systems not describable by classical physics. Though it is consistent with all experiments conducted thus far, many of its core concepts (amplitudes, global phases, etc.) can not be directly accessed and its interpretation is still the subject of intense debate, more than 100 years since it was introduced. So, a fundamental question is why this particular mathematical model is the one that nature chooses, if indeed it is the correct model. In the past two decades there has been a renewed effort to determine what physical or informational principles define quantum mechanics. In this paper, recent attempts at establishing reasonable physical principles are reviewed and their degree of success is tabulated. An alternative approach using joint quasi-probability distributions is shown to provide a common basis of representing most of the proposed principles. It is argued that having a common representation of the principles can provide intuition and guidance to relate current principles or advance new principles. The current state of affairs, along with some alternative views are discussed.