Collapse Theories as Beable Theories

Guido Bacciagaluppi (1)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques

I discuss the interpretation of spontaneous collapse theories, with particular reference to Bell's suggestion that the stochastic jumps in the evolution of the wave function should be considered as local beables of the theory. I develop this analogy in some detail for the case of non-relativistic GRW-type theories, using a generalisation of Bell's notion of beables to POV measures. In the context of CSL-type theories, this strategy appears to fail, and I discuss instead Ghirardi and co-workers' mass-density interpretation and its relation to Schroedinger's original charge-density interpretation. This discussion is extended to relativistic CSL-type theories. A few remarks on Everett's interpretation conclude the paper.

Mots clés: quantum mechanics; collapse theories; beable theories; Bell; Schroedinger

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Guido Bacciagaluppi. Collapse Theories as Beable Theories. Manuscrito, 2010, 33 (1), pp.19-54. ⟨halshs-00996265⟩