Scheme of a Derivation of Collapse from Quantum Dynamics

TL;DR

This paper derives a mechanism for quantum collapse from the Schrödinger equation, showing how local entanglement properties and environmental fluctuations combine to produce measurement outcomes and support Born's rule.

Contribution

It introduces a novel derivation of collapse based solely on quantum dynamics, emphasizing local entanglement features and environmental effects.

Findings

Local and transient entanglement features are derived from Schrödinger's equation.

Environmental fluctuations induce incoherence, leading to collapse.

Collapse emerges as an effective, probabilistic outcome from quantum dynamics.

Abstract

Two categories of results regarding quantum measurements are derived in this work and applied to the problem of collapse. The first category is concerned with local and transient features of the entanglement between a macroscopic measuring system and a measured one. These properties result directly from the Schr\"odinger equation. They cannot be formulated in terms of observables, do not affect the wave functions themselves but express their history in an irreversible way. They carry a specific new kind of local probabilities, which evolve with a finite velocity under nonlinear wave equations. The second category of results extends these local properties to the case of a macroscopic system and its environment. Fluctuations in their interaction are predicted then and generate a specific incoherence in the quantum state of the system. These two kinds of effects act together when a macroscopic measuring system interacts with a measured system and with an environment. Their combination yields then an explicit and effective mechanism of collapse, with a random behavior resulting from random incoherence. Born's basic probability rule for the results of measurements turns out then simply a consequence of quantum dynamics. Some conjectures still enter into the derivation of these effects, which one may recognize to look hardly credible at first sight. They fit however so well together that one proposes a more thorough investigation of their approach as a promising strategy for a self-contained explanation of collapse.