PIRSA:25100089 Conference Quantum Foundations

DOI10.48660/25100089

Conference/School: 100 Years of Quantum: Perspectives on its Past, Present, and Future

(2025). Quantum jumps and beyond: do atoms just do it, or do we have to be looking?. Perimeter Institute. https://pirsa.org/25100089

Quantum jumps and beyond: do atoms just do it, or do we have to be looking?. Perimeter Institute, Oct. 24, 2025, https://pirsa.org/25100089 

@misc{ pirsa_PIRSA:25100089,
  doi = {10.48660/25100089},
  url = {https://pirsa.org/25100089},
  author = {},
  keywords = {Quantum Foundations},
  language = {en},
  title = {Quantum jumps and beyond: do atoms just do it, or do we have to be looking?},
  publisher = {Perimeter Institute},
  year = {2025},
  month = {oct},
  note = {PIRSA:25100089 see, \url{https://pirsa.org}}
}

Abstract

Quantum jumps pre-date the birth of modern quantum theory 100 years ago. But the modern understanding of these and other quantum stochastic processes emerged only in the early 1990s, via a process of convergence of surprisingly many different streams of research, in experimental and theoretical atomic physics and quantum optics, quantum foundations, mathematical physics, and control theory. Serendipitously, I began my PhD on this topic just as this was happening, so I played a small role in this development. My enduring fascination with the stochastic "unravellings" of the evolution of simple quantum systems also led to the formalisation of EPR-steering, to design experiments (yet to be done) to definitively disprove the idea that atoms undergo quantum jumps (or any other objective stochastic unravelling) independent of our observation.

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