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Quantum trajectory theory


Larrys3255

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I am a retired Prof in Molecular Biology but I have a long standing interest as an outsider in  Physics and Astronomy. I read recently about Quantum Trajectory Theory and a new experimental result in that field by Markus Hennrich and Adan Cabello , which I don't really understand. They measured electrically trapped strontium ions in superposition. They saw a smooth,  gradual change in state rather than the abrupt snap of the  predicted collapsing wave function. The review I read said that this went against the  "many world" hypothesis. Could someone explain this to me?

 

Thanks.

Larry

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Not sure what they were measuring to cause the wavefunction collapse, but changes of state are not instantaneous.

"Quantum jumps are not truly instantaneous and random

The researchers did not stop there: they also managed to control the quantum jump once it had started by applying an electric pulse to the artificial atom. In this way, they intercepted it and sent it back to the ground state. They are only able to do this because the quantum jump is not truly instantaneous and random. Instead, quantum jumps take the same trajectory between the two energy levels every time, so it is possible to predict how to send them back."

From         https://physicsworld.com/a/to-catch-a-quantum-jump/

And I don't understand what that has to do with the 'many worlds' interpretation.
Could you maybe post a link to this Hennrich-Cabello paper ?

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MigL

The reference is Pokorny, F., Zhang, C., Higgins, G., Cabello, A., Kleimann, M., and Hennrich, M. (2020). Tracking the Dynamics of an Ideal Quantum Measurement. Phy. Rev 124, 080401. I should have mentioned the previous work by Hennrich et al. you linked. 

As for Many Worlds, I only mentioned  it since the review I read indicated that this experiment disproved it.  In fact I just finished reading the book Something Deeply  Hidden by Sean Carroll. in which he spent a lot of time writing about the Many World hypothesis. 

In any case I still do not see what being able to follow that the quantum jump from the ground state to an excited state occurs continuous, coherent and deterministic, means in relation to the “Collapse of the wave” hypothesis.  

 

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