Quantum Physics

Recently rediscovered results in the theory of partial differential equations show that for free fields, the properties of the field in an arbitrarily small volume of space, traced through eternity, determine completely the field everywhere at all times. Over finite times, the field is determined in the entire region spanned by the intersection of the future null cone of the earliest event and the past null cone of the latest event. Thus this paradigm of classical field theory exhibits a fascinating form of nonlocality. I'll discuss this result and what it tells us about the possibility of constructing a classical, nonlocal theory which accommodates all the phenomena we observe.

Quantum Mechanics has been shown to provide a rigorous foundation for Statistical Mechanics. Concentration of measure, or typicality, is the main tool to construct a purely quantum derivation for the methods of Statistical Mechanics. From this point of view statistical ensembles are effective description for isolated quantum systems, since typically a random pure state of the system will have properties similar to those of the ensemble. Nevertheless, it is often argued that most of the states of the Hilbert space are not relevant for realistic systems. This talk will address this issue, presenting recent results on the emergence of typicality in the context of matrix product states, a set of physically and computationally relevant states associated to many-body Hamiltonians.

Symmetric monoidal categories provide a convenient and enlightening framework within which to compare and contrast physical theories on a common mathematical footing. In this talk we consider two theories: stabiliser qubit quantum mechanics and the toy bit theory proposed by Rob Spekkens. Expressed in the categorical framework the two theories look very similar mathematically, reflecting their common physical features. There are differences though: in particular a finite Abelian group emerges naturally in the categorical framework, and this group is different in each case ($Z_4$ for the stabiliser theory and $Z_2 \times Z_2$ for the toy bit theory). It turns out that this mathematical difference corresponds directly with a key physical difference between the theories: the stabiliser theory cannot be modelled by local hidden variables, while the toy bit theory can. This analysis can be extended to other Abelian groups yielding a group-theoretic criterion for determining the possibility of local hidden variable interpretations for other physical theories.

Quantum mechanics does not allow us to measure all possible combinations of observables on one system. Even in the simplest case of two observables we know, that measuring one of the observables changes the system in such way, that the other measurement will not give us desired precise information about the state of the system. Prominent examples of such observables are measurement of position and momentum of a particle, or measuring spin along two orthogonal directions. However, once we accept the possibility of imprecise measurements, we can consider to perform such measurement within one experiment. This is the basis of the notion of coexistence. I will present the basics of coexistence by showing how to perform the spin measurement in two directions, while considering the imprecision of the measurement described by POVMs. We can also go a little further and consider coexistence of instruments, i.e. measurements, where on the output besides classical information we are also left out with quantum post-measurement state.

Nonlocality is arguably one of the most remarkable features of quantum mechanics. On the other hand nature seems to forbid other no-signaling correlations that cannot be generated by quantum systems. Usual approaches to explain this limitation is based on information theoretic properties of the correlations without any reference to physical theories they might emerge from. However, as shown in [PRL 104, 140401 (2010)], it is the structure of local quantum systems that determines the bipartite correlations possible in quantum mechanics. We investigate this connection further by introducing toy systems with regular polygons as local state spaces. This allows us to study the transition between bipartite classical, no-signaling and quantum correlations by modifying only the local state space. It turns out that the strength of nonlocality of the maximally entangled state depends crucially on a simple geometric property of the local state space, known as strong self-duality. We prove that the limitation of nonlocal correlations is a general result valid for the maximally entangled state in any model with strongly self-dual local state spaces, since such correlations must satisfy the principle of macroscopic locality. This implies notably that Tsirelson’s bound for correlations of the maximally entangled state in quantum mechanics can be regarded as a consequence of strong self-duality of local quantum systems. Finally, our results also show that there exist models which are locally almost identical to quantum mechanics, but can nevertheless generate maximally nonlocal correlations.

A picture can be used to represent an experiment. In this talk we will consider such pictures and show how to turn them into pictures representing calculations (in the style of Penrose's diagrammatic tensor notation). In particular, we will consider circuits described probabilistically. A circuit represents an experiment where we act on various systems with boxes, these boxes being connected by the passage of systems between them. We will make two assumptions concerning such circuits. These two assumptions allow us to set up the duotensor framework (a duotensor is like a tensor except that each position is associated with two possible bases). We will see that quantum theory can be formulated in this framework. Each of the usual objects of quantum theory (states, measurements, transformations) are special cases of duotensors. The framework is motivated by the objective of providing a formulation of quantum theory which is local in the sense that, in doing a calculation pertaining to a particular region of spacetime, we need only use mathematical objects that pertain to this same region. This is, I argue, a prerequisite in a theory of quantum gravity. Reference for this talk: http://arxiv.org/abs/1005.5164

Complex numbers are an intrinsic part of the mathematical formalism of quantum theory, and are perhaps its most mysterious feature. But what is their physical origin? In this talk, I show how it is possible to trace the complex nature of the quantum formalism directly to the basic symmetries associated with the basic operations which allow elementary experiments to be combined into more elaborate ones. In particular, I show that, by harnessing these symmetries, the Feynman rules of quantum theory can be derived from the assumption that a pair of real numbers is associated to each sequence of measurement outcomes, and that the probability of this sequence is a real-valued function of this number pair. The derivation has numerous intriguing implications, such as pointing to a deep connection between the foundations of quantum theory and the foundations of number systems. It also demonstrates that, contrary to the rather prevalent working hypothesis that the structure of the quantum formalism has something essentially to do with nonlocality, the core of the quantum formalism in fact does not depend in any essential way on the properties of space. Reference: "Origin of Complex Quantum Amplitudes and Feynman's Rules", Phys. Rev. A 81, 022109 (2010). Full text available at www.philipgoyal.org

Peter Evans The extent to which Julian Barbour's Machian formulation of general relativity and his interpretation of canonical quantum gravity can be called timeless is addressed. We differentiate two types of timelessness in Barbour's work (1994a, 1994b and 1999) and attempt to refine Barbour's metaphysical claim by providing an account of the essential features of time through considerations of the representation of time in physical theory. We argue that Barbour's claim of timelessness is dubious with respect to his Machian formulation of general relativity but warranted with respect to his interpretation of canonical quantum gravity. We conclude by discussing some of the implications of Barbour's view.

The aim of this talk is to review and discuss some aspects of quantum entanglement in the quantum field theoretic (QFT) domain. The discussion takes place in the algebraic approach to QFT, the motivation for which is briefly discussed. We consider in what sense this approach is sometimes called 'local quantum theory'. We discuss a possible 'realist' understanding of quantum entanglement within this framework, addressing some conceptual and methodological worries raised by Einstein (among others).

The de Broglie-Bohm pilot-wave program is an attempt to formulate quantum theory (including quantum field theory) as a theory without observers, by assuming that the wave-function is not the complete description of a system, but must be supplemented by additional variables (beables). Although many progress has been made in order to extend the pilot-wave theory to quantum field theory, a compelling ontology for quantum field theory is still lacking and the choice of beable is likely to be relevant for the study of quantum non-equilibrium systems and their relaxation properties (Valentini). The present work takes its root in the fact that in the standard model of particle physics, all fermions are fundamentally massless and acquire their bare mass when the Higgs field condenses. In our tentative to build a pilot-wave model for quantum field theory in which beables are attributed to massless fermions, we are naturally led to Weyl spinors and to Penrose's zig-zag picture of the electron. In my talk, I will sketch this tentative and insist on some of its remarkable properties: namely that a positive-energy massive Dirac electron can be thought of as a superposition of positive and negative energy Weyl spinors of the same helicity, and that the massive Dirac electron can in principle move luminally at all times. Based on a joint work with H. Wiseman.

The effects of closed timelike curves (CTCs) in quantum dynamics, and its consequences for information processing have recently become the subject of a heated debate. Deutsch introduced a formalism for treating CTCs in a quantum computational framework. He postulated a consistency condition on the chronology-violating systems which led to a nonlinear evolution on the systems that come to interact with the CTC. This has been shown to allow tasks which are impossible in ordinary linear quantum evolution, such as computational speed-ups over (linear) quantum computers, and perfectly distinguishing non-orthogonal quantum states. Bennett and co-authors have argued, on the other hand, that nonlinear evolution allows no such exotic effects. They argued that all proofs of exotic effects due to nonlinear evolutions suffer from a fallacy they called the " linearity trap". Here we review the argument of Bennett and co-authors and show that there is no inconsistency in assuming linearity at the level of a classical ensemble, even at the presence of nonlinear quantum evolution. In fact, this is required for the very existence of empirically verifiable nonlinear evolution. The arguments for exotic quantum effects are thus seen to be based on the necessity for a fundamental distinction between proper and improper mixtures in the presence of nonlinear evolutions. We show how this leads to an operationally well-defined version of the measurement problem that we call the "preparation problem".