The Montevideo Interpretation: How the inclusion of a Quantum Gravitational Notion of Time Solves the Measurement Problem

TL;DR

The paper discusses how incorporating a quantum gravitational notion of time into the Montevideo Interpretation of quantum mechanics addresses the measurement problem by naturally inducing decoherence and redefining quantum events without external observers.

Contribution

It introduces a formalism using real clocks and quantum gravity to explain measurement outcomes, avoiding the need for classical reference frames and external observers.

Findings

Decoherence emerges as a fundamental mechanism in this framework.

Global protocols cannot distinguish superpositions from definite outcomes due to fundamental uncertainties.

The interpretation provides an intrinsic, observer-independent definition of quantum events.

Abstract

We review the Montevideo Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is based on the use of real clocks to describe physics, using the framework recently introduced by Hoehn, Smith and Lock to treat the problem of time in generally covariant systems. The use of the new formalism makes the whole construction more accessible to readers without familiarity with totally constrained systems. We find that as in the original formulation, a fundamental mechanism of decoherence emerges that allows to supplement ordinary environmental decoherence and avoid its criticisms. Recent results on quantum complexity provide additional support to the type of global protocols used to prove that within ordinary -- unitary -- quantum mechanics no definite event -- an outcome to which a probability can be associated -- occurs. In lieu of this, states that start in a coherent superposition of possible outcomes always remain as a superposition. We show that, if one takes into account fundamental inescapable uncertainties in measuring length and time intervals due to general relativity and quantum mechanics, the previously mentioned global protocols no longer allow to distinguish whether the state is in a superposition or not. One is left with a formulation of quantum mechanics purely defined in quantum mechanical terms without any reference to the classical world and with an intrinsic operational definition of quantum events that does not need external observers.