1,349 research outputs found
Quantum mechanics explained
The physical motivation for the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics
is made clear and compelling by starting from an obvious fact - essentially,
the stability of matter - and inquiring into its preconditions: what does it
take to make this fact possible?Comment: 29 pages, 5 figures. v2: revised in response to referee comment
Derivation of the Rules of Quantum Mechanics from Information-Theoretic Axioms
Conventional quantum mechanics with a complex Hilbert space and the Born Rule
is derived from five axioms describing properties of probability distributions
for the outcome of measurements. Axioms I,II,III are common to quantum
mechanics and hidden variable theories. Axiom IV recognizes a phenomenon, first
noted by Turing and von Neumann, in which the increase in entropy resulting
from a measurement is reduced by a suitable intermediate measurement. This is
shown to be impossible for local hidden variable theories. Axiom IV, together
with the first three, almost suffice to deduce the conventional rules but allow
some exotic, alternatives such as real or quaternionic quantum mechanics. Axiom
V recognizes a property of the distribution of outcomes of random measurements
on qubits which holds only in the complex Hilbert space model. It is then shown
that the five axioms also imply the conventional rules for all dimensions.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure
Mechanisms of Surviving Burial: Dune Grass Interspecific Differences Drive Resource Allocation After Sand Deposition
Sand dunes are important geomorphic formations of coastal ecosystems that are critical in protecting human populations that live in coastal areas. Dune formation is driven by ecomorphodynamic interactions between vegetation and sediment deposition. While there has been extensive research on responses of dune grasses to sand burial, there is a knowledge gap in understanding mechanisms of acclimation between similar, coexistent, dune-building grasses such as Ammophila breviligulata (C3), Spartina patens (C4), and Uniola paniculata (C4). Our goal was to determine how physiological mechanisms of acclimation to sand burial vary between species. We hypothesize that (1) in the presence of burial, resource allocation will be predicated on photosynthetic pathway and that we will be able to characterize the C3 species as a root allocator and the C4 species as leaf allocators. We also hypothesize that (2) despite similarities between these species in habitat, growth form, and life history, leaf, root, and whole plant traits will vary between species when burial is not present. Furthermore, when burial is present, the existing variability in physiological strategy will drive species-specific mechanisms of survival. In a greenhouse experiment, we exposed three dune grass species to different burial treatments: 0 cm (control) and a one-time 25-cm burial to mimic sediment deposition during a storm. At the conclusion of our study, we collected a suite of physiological and morphological functional traits. Results showed that Ammophila decreased allocation to aboveground biomass to maintain root biomass, preserving photosynthesis by allocating nitrogen (N) into light-exposed leaves. Conversely, Uniola and Spartina decreased allocation to belowground production to increase elongation and maintain aboveground biomass. Interestingly, we found that species were functionally distinct when burial was absent; however, all species became more similar when treated with burial. In the presence of burial, species utilized functional traits of rapid growth strategy, although mechanisms of change were interspecifically variable
Effects and Propositions
The quantum logical and quantum information-theoretic traditions have exerted
an especially powerful influence on Bub's thinking about the conceptual
foundations of quantum mechanics. This paper discusses both the quantum logical
and information-theoretic traditions from the point of view of their
representational frameworks. I argue that it is at this level, at the level of
its framework, that the quantum logical tradition has retained its centrality
to Bub's thought. It is further argued that there is implicit in the quantum
information-theoretic tradition a set of ideas that mark a genuinely new
alternative to the framework of quantum logic. These ideas are of considerable
interest for the philosophy of quantum mechanics, a claim which I defend with
an extended discussion of their application to our understanding of the
philosophical significance of the no hidden variable theorem of Kochen and
Specker.Comment: Presented to the 2007 conference, New Directions in the Foundations
of Physic
Three dimensional quantum algebras: a Cartan-like point of view
A perturbative quantization procedure for Lie bialgebras is introduced and
used to classify all three dimensional complex quantum algebras compatible with
a given coproduct. The role of elements of the quantum universal enveloping
algebra that, analogously to generators in Lie algebras, have a distinguished
type of coproduct is discussed, and the relevance of a symmetrical basis in the
universal enveloping algebra stressed. New quantizations of three dimensional
solvable algebras, relevant for possible physical applications for their
simplicity, are obtained and all already known related results recovered. Our
results give a quantization of all existing three dimensional Lie algebras and
reproduce, in the classical limit, the most relevant sector of the complete
classification for real three dimensional Lie bialgebra structures given by X.
Gomez in J. Math. Phys. Vol. 41. (2000) 4939.Comment: LaTeX, 15 page
Integrable potentials on spaces with curvature from quantum groups
A family of classical integrable systems defined on a deformation of the
two-dimensional sphere, hyperbolic and (anti-)de Sitter spaces is constructed
through Hamiltonians defined on the non-standard quantum deformation of a sl(2)
Poisson coalgebra. All these spaces have a non-constant curvature that depends
on the deformation parameter z. As particular cases, the analogues of the
harmonic oscillator and Kepler--Coulomb potentials on such spaces are proposed.
Another deformed Hamiltonian is also shown to provide superintegrable systems
on the usual sphere, hyperbolic and (anti-)de Sitter spaces with a constant
curvature that exactly coincides with z. According to each specific space, the
resulting potential is interpreted as the superposition of a central harmonic
oscillator with either two more oscillators or centrifugal barriers. The
non-deformed limit z=0 of all these Hamiltonians can then be regarded as the
zero-curvature limit (contraction) which leads to the corresponding
(super)integrable systems on the flat Euclidean and Minkowskian spaces.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure. Two references adde
Partial Description of Quantum States
One of the most central and controversial element of quantum mechanics is the
use of non zero vectors of a Hilbert space (or, more generally, of one
dimension subspaces) for representing the state of a quantum system. In
particular, the question whether such a representation is complete has been
debated since almost the early days of quantum mechanics. In this article, we
develop an alternate way to formalize knowledge about the state of quantum
systems, based solely on experimentally accessible elements, namely on outcomes
of finite measurements. We introduce what we call partial description which,
given a feasible measurement, indicates some outcomes which are known to be
impossible (i.e. known to have a probability equal to 0 to occur) and hence
have to be discarded. Then, we introduce partial states (which are partial
descriptions providing as much information as possible) and compare this way to
describe quantum states to the orthodox one, using vector rays. Finally, we
show that partial states allow to describe quantum states in a strictly more
expressive way that the orthodox description does
Quantum value indefiniteness
The indeterministic outcome of a measurement of an individual quantum is
certified by the impossibility of the simultaneous, definite, deterministic
pre-existence of all conceivable observables from physical conditions of that
quantum alone. We discuss possible interpretations and consequences for quantum
oracles.Comment: 19 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures; contribution to PC0
Finite precision measurement nullifies the Kochen-Specker theorem
Only finite precision measurements are experimentally reasonable, and they
cannot distinguish a dense subset from its closure. We show that the rational
vectors, which are dense in S^2, can be colored so that the contradiction with
hidden variable theories provided by Kochen-Specker constructions does not
obtain. Thus, in contrast to violation of the Bell inequalities, no
quantum-over-classical advantage for information processing can be derived from
the Kochen-Specker theorem alone.Comment: 7 pages, plain TeX; minor corrections, interpretation clarified,
references update
Time Asymmetric Quantum Physics
Mathematical and phenomenological arguments in favor of asymmetric time
evolution of micro-physical states are presented.Comment: Tex file with 2 figure
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