Entanglement and the Path Integral

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel path integral approach for analyzing entanglement experiments, providing new insights into foundational quantum concepts like nonlocality and retrocausality.

Contribution

It develops a new toolbox for converting entanglement experiments into a sum-over-histories framework, enabling analysis of multi-particle measurements in an entangled basis.

Findings

Joint probabilities match conventional quantum mechanics.

Differences in calculations offer insights into nonlocality and retrocausality.

Analysis of complex multi-particle experiments using the new method.

Abstract

The path integral is not typically utilized for analyzing entanglement experiments, in part because there is no standard toolbox for converting an arbitrary experiment into a form allowing a simple sum-over-history calculation. After completing the last portion of this toolbox (a technique for implementing multi-particle measurements in an entangled basis), some interesting 4- and 6-particle experiments are analyzed with this alternate technique. While the joint probabilities of measurement outcomes are always equivalent to conventional quantum mechanics, differences in the calculations motivate a number of foundational insights, concerning nonlocality, retrocausality, and the objectivity of entanglement itself.