Insolubility from No-Signalling

Guido Bacciagaluppi (1)

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

This paper improves on the result in my http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/9121/, showing that within the framework of the unitary Schroedinger equation it is impossible to reproduce the phenomenological description of quantum mechanical measurements (in particular the collapse of the state of the measured system) by assuming a suitable mixed initial state of the apparatus. The result follows directly from the no-signalling theorem applied to the entangled state of measured system and ancilla. As opposed to other 'insolubility theorems' for the measurement problem of quantum mechanics, it focuses on the impossibility of reproducing the phenomenological collapse of the state of the measured system.

Mots clés: insolubility theorem; measurement problem; no-signalling theorem; quantum mechanics

Domaines: Histoire, Philosophie et Sociologie des sciences

Guido Bacciagaluppi. Insolubility from No-Signalling. International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 2013, pp.n/a. ⟨10.1007/s10773-013-1821-y⟩. ⟨halshs-00996251⟩