Apparent wave function collapse caused by scattering

TL;DR

This paper calculates how random scatterings can cause apparent wave function collapse, showing that natural scatterings mimic collapse effects and challenge experimental detection of genuine collapse phenomena.

Contribution

It provides exact results for wave function collapse due to scatterings and demonstrates the difficulty of experimentally distinguishing true collapse effects from natural scattering.

Findings

Natural scatterings mimic wave function collapse effects

Proposed experiments to detect GRW collapse are likely to fail

Macroscopic systems tend to be in states with minimal uncertainty, microscopic systems in highly squeezed states

Abstract

Some experimental implications of the recent progress on wave function collapse are calculated. Exact results are derived for the center-of-mass wave function collapse caused by random scatterings and applied to a range of specific examples. The results show that recently proposed experiments to measure the GRW effect are likely to fail, since the effect of naturally occurring scatterings is of the same form as the GRW effect but generally much stronger. The same goes for attempts to measure the collapse caused by quantum gravity as suggested by Hawking and others. The results also indicate that macroscopic systems tend to be found in states with (Delta-x)(Delta-p) = hbar/sqrt(2), but microscopic systems in highly tiltedly squeezed states with (Delta-x)(Delta-p) >> hbar.