No Arabic abstract
We analyze the achievable limits of the quantum information processing of the weak interaction revealed by hyperons with spin. We find that the weak decay process corresponds to an interferometric device with a fixed visibility and fixed phase difference for each hyperon. Nature chooses rather low visibilities expressing a preference to parity conserving or violating processes (except for the decay $Sigma^+longrightarrow p pi^0$). The decay process can be considered as an open quantum channel that carries the information of the hyperon spin to the angular distribution of the momentum of the daughter particles. We find a simple geometrical information theoretic interpretation of this process: two quantization axes are chosen spontaneously with probabilities $frac{1pmalpha}{2}$ where $alpha$ is proportional to the visibility times the real part of the phase shift. Differently stated the weak interaction process corresponds to spin measurements with an imperfect Stern-Gerlach apparatus. Equipped with this information theoretic insight we show how entanglement can be measured in these systems and why Bells nonlocality (in contradiction to common misconception in literature) cannot be revealed in hyperon decays. We study also under which circumstances contextuality can be revealed.
Results presented in a recent paper Which is the Quantum Decay Law of Relativistic particles?, arXiv: 1412.3346v2 [quant--ph]], are analyzed. We show that approximations used therein to derive the main final formula for the survival probability of finding a moving unstable particle to be undecayed at time $t$ force this particle to almost stop moving, that is that, in fact, the derived formula is approximately valid only for $gamma cong 1$, where $gamma = 1/sqrt{1-beta^{2}}$ and $beta = v/c$, or in other words, for the velocity $v simeq 0$.
Quantum trajectory-based descriptions of interference between two coherent stationary waves in a double-slit experiment are presented, as given by the de Broglie-Bohm (dBB) and modified de Broglie-Bohm (MdBB) formulations of quantum mechanics. In the dBB trajectory representation, interference between two spreading wave packets can be shown also as resulting from motion of particles. But a trajectory explanation for interference between stationary states is so far not available in this scheme. We show that both the dBB and MdBB trajectories are capable of producing the interference pattern for stationary as well as wave packet states. However, the dBB representation is found to provide the `which-way information that helps to identify the hole through which the particle emanates. On the other hand, the MdBB representation does not provide any which-way information while giving a satisfactory explanation of interference phenomenon in tune with the de Broglies wave particle duality. By counting the trajectories reaching the screen, we have numerically evaluated the intensity distribution of the fringes and found very good agreement with the standard results.
This paper answers Bells question: What does quantum information refer to? It is about quantum properties represented by subspaces of the quantum Hilbert space, or their projectors, to which standard (Kolmogorov) probabilities can be assigned by using a projective decomposition of the identity (PDI or framework) as a quantum sample space. The single framework rule of consistent histories prevents paradoxes or contradictions. When only one framework is employed, classical (Shannon) information theory can be imported unchanged into the quantum domain. A particular case is the macroscopic world of classical physics whose quantum description needs only a single quasiclassical framework. Nontrivial issues unique to quantum information, those with no classical analog, arise when aspects of two or more incompatible frameworks are compared.
I review arguments demonstrating how the concept of particle numbers arises in the form of equidistant energy eigenvalues of coupled harmonic oscillators representing free fields. Their quantum numbers (numbers of nodes of the wave functions) can be interpreted as occupation numbers for objects with a formal mass (defined by the field equation) and spatial wave number (momentum) characterizing classical field modes. A superposition of different oscillator eigenstates, all consisting of n modes having one node, while all others have none, defines a nondegenerate n-particle wave function. Other discrete properties and phenomena (such as particle positions and events) can be understood by means of the fast but smooth process of decoherence: the irreversible dislocalization of superpositions. Any wave-particle dualism thus becomes obsolete. The observation of individual outcomes of this decoherence process in measurements requires either a subsequent collapse of the wave function or a branching observer in accordance with the Schrodinger equation - both possibilities applying clearly after the decoherence process. Any probability interpretation of the wave function in terms of local elements of reality, such as particles or other classical concepts, would open a Pandoras box of paradoxes, as is illustrated by various misnomers that have become popular in quantum theory.
Lectures given at the Theoretical Advanced Study Institute (TASI 2020), 1-26 June 2020. The topics covered include quantum circuits, entanglement, quantum teleportation, Bell inequalities, quantum entropy and decoherence, classical versus quantum measurement, the area law for entanglement entropy in quantum field theory, and simulating quantum field theory on a quantum computer. Along the way we confront the fundamental sloppiness of how we all learned (and some of us taught) quantum mechanics in college. Links to a Python notebook and Mathematica notebooks will allow the reader to reproduce and extend the calculations, as well as perform five experiments on a quantum simulator.