Reality and the Probability Wave

TL;DR

This paper proposes that quantum probability waves are not physically real but are instead the result of real physical reactions and fluctuations in the apparatus, offering a new interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Contribution

It introduces a physically grounded explanation for quantum effects, challenging the view of probability waves as ontic entities and linking them to apparatus reactions and fluctuations.

Findings

Reactions of the apparatus explain quantum interference effects.

Fluctuations in reradiation fields account for particle state changes.

Probability wave is an epistemic construct, not a physical entity.

Abstract

Effects associated in quantum mechanics with a divisible probability wave are explained as physically real consequences of the equal but opposite reaction of the apparatus as a particle is measured. Taking as illustration a Mach-Zehnder interferometer operating by refraction, it is shown that this reaction must comprise a fluctuation in the reradiation field of complementary effect to the changes occurring in the photon as it is projected into one or other path. The evolution of this fluctuation through the experiment will explain the alternative states of the particle discerned in self interference, while the maintenance of equilibrium in the face of such fluctuations becomes the source of the Born probabilities. In this scheme, the probability wave is a mathematical artifact, epistemic rather than ontic, and akin in this respect to the simplifying constructions of geometrical optics.