In Praise and in Criticism of the Model of Continuous Spontaneous Localization of the Wave-Function

TL;DR

This paper discusses the CSL model of wave-function collapse, arguing its necessity and demonstrating its application to detector processes, highlighting the role of noise and the formalism's modifications.

Contribution

It proves the unavoidable nature of the collapse postulate and applies the CSL model step-by-step to detector processes, clarifying wave-function reduction mechanisms.

Findings

Collapse is unavoidable according to the analysis.

CSL model effectively describes wave-function reduction in detectors.

Noise cannot originate from classical fields, as argued in the paper.

Abstract

Different attempts to solve the measurement problem of the quantum mechanics (QM) by denying the collapse principle, and replacing it with changes in the quantum formalism, failed because the changes in the formalism lead to contradictions with QM predictions. To the difference, Ghirardi, Rimini and Weber took the collapse as a real phenomenon, and proposed a calculus by which the wave-function should undergo a sudden localization. Later on, Ghirardi, Pearle and Rimini came with a change of this calculus into the CSL (continuous spontaneous localization) model of collapse. Both these proposals rely on the experimental fact that the reduction of the wave-function occurs when the microscopic system encounters a macroscopic object and involves a big amount of its particles. Both of them also change the quantum formalism by introducing in the Schrodinger equation additional terms with noisy behavior. However, these terms have practically no influence as long as the studied system contains only one or a few components. Only when the amount of components is very big, these terms become significant and lead to the reduction of the wave-function to one of its components. The present work has two purposes: 1) proving that the collapse postulate is unavoidable; 2) applying the CSL model to the process in a detector and showing step by step the modification of the wave-function, until reduction. As a side detail, it is argued here that the noise cannot originate in some classical field, contrary to the thought/hope of some physicists, because no classical field is tailored by the wave-functions of entanglements.