PIRSA:13050018 Scientific Series

DOI10.48660/13050018

Series: Quantum Foundations

Maroney, O. (2013). Limitations on the psi-epistemic view of quantum states. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/13050018

Maroney, Owen. Limitations on the psi-epistemic view of quantum states. Perimeter Institute, May. 07, 2013, https://pirsa.org/13050018 

@misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:13050018,
  doi = {10.48660/13050018},
  url = {https://pirsa.org/13050018},
  author = {Maroney, Owen},
  keywords = {},
  language = {en},
  title = {Limitations on the psi-epistemic view of quantum states},
  publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
  year = {2013},
  month = {may},
  note = {PIRSA:13050018 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
}

Abstract

The "psi-epistemic" view is that the quantum state does not represent a state of the world, but a state of knowledge about the world.  It is motivated, in part, by the observation of qualitative similarities between characteristic properties of non-orthogonal quantum wavefunctions and between overlapping classical probability distributions.  It might be suggested that this gives a natural explanation for these properties, which seem puzzling for the alternative "psi-ontic" view.  I will examine two such similarities, quantum state overlap and quantum state discrimination, and ask how far can we reproduce the quantitative values given by quantum theory.  It will be shown that the psi-epistemic view cannot properly account for the quantitative values, and so must still rely on the same kind of explanations as the "psi-ontic" view.

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