A Theory of Quantum Preparation and the Corresponding Advantage of the Relative-Collapse Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics as Compared to the Conventional One

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive theory of quantum preparation, comparing the relative-collapse interpretation with the conventional one, and demonstrates the advantages of the former in understanding preparator mechanisms.

Contribution

It extends the relative-collapse interpretation to include quantum preparators, unifying the mechanisms and clarifying the entities involved in quantum state preparation.

Findings

Identifies four key entities in quantum preparation: composite state, preparator observable, triggering event, and conditional state.

Shows the relative-collapse interpretation simplifies the understanding of preparators by unifying mechanisms.

Demonstrates advantages of the relative-collapse interpretation over the conventional one in quantum preparation theory.

Abstract

Analyzing two standard preparators, the Stern-Gerlach and the hole-in-the-screen ones, it is demonstrated that four entities are the basic ingredients of the theory: the composite-system preparator-plus-object state (coming about as a result of a suitable interaction between the subsystems), a suitable preparator observable, one of its characteristic projectors called the triggering event, and, finally, the conditional object state corresponding to the occurrence of the triggering event. The concepts of a conditional state and of retrospective apparent ideal occurrence are discussed in the conventional interpretation of quantum mechanics. In the general theory of a preparator in this interpretation first-kind and second-kind preparators are distinguished. They are described by the same entities in the same way, but in terms of different physical mechanisms. In this article the relative-collapse interpretation is extended to encompass also preparators (besides measuring apparatuses). In this interpretation also the mechanisms become the same and one has only one kind of preparators.