The Madelung Picture as a Foundation of Geometric Quantum Theory

TL;DR

This paper proposes a geometric foundation for quantum theory based on Madelung's equations, linking quantum mechanics to classical mechanics and probability theory, and explores implications for fundamental quantum concepts.

Contribution

It introduces a novel geometric approach to quantum theory using Madelung's equations, challenging the reliance on quantization algorithms and suggesting a deeper classical connection.

Findings

Quantum theory can be derived from Madelung's equations instead of quantization.

Implications for the measurement problem and uncertainty principle are discussed.

Quantum behavior may be influenced by gravitational background noise.

Abstract

Despite its age, quantum theory still suffers from serious conceptual difficulties. To create clarity, mathematical physicists have been attempting to formulate quantum theory geometrically and to find a rigorous method of quantization, but this has not resolved the problem. In this article we argue that a quantum theory recoursing to quantization algorithms is necessarily incomplete. To provide an alternative approach, we argue that the Schroedinger equation is a consequence of three partial differential equations governing the time evolution of a given probability density. These equations, discovered by E. Madelung, naturally ground the Schroedinger theory in Newtonian mechanics and Kolmogorovian probability theory. A variety of far-reaching consequences for the projection postulate, the correspondence principle, the measurement problem, the uncertainty principle, and the modelling of particle creation and annihilation are immediate. We also give a speculative interpretation of the equations following Bohm, Vigier and Tsekov, by claiming that quantum mechanical behavior is possibly caused by gravitational background noise.