The Born Rule is a Feature of Superposition

Author:

Ellerman DavidORCID

Abstract

Finite probability theory is enriched by introducing the mathematical notion (no physics involved) of a superposition event \(\Sigma S\)--in addition to the usual discrete event \(S\) (subset of the outcome space \(U=\left( u_{1},...,u_{n}\right)\)). Mathematically, the two types of events are distinguished using \(n\times n\) density matrices. The density matrix \(\rho\left(  S\right)\) for a discrete event is diagonal and the density matrix \(\rho\left(  \Sigma S\right)\) is obtained as an outer product \(\left\vert s\right\rangle \left\langle s\right\vert\) of a normalized vector \(\left\vert s\right\rangle \in\mathbb{R}^{n}\). Probabilities are defined using density matrices as \(\Pr\left(  T|\rho\right)  =\operatorname*{tr}\left[ P_{T}\rho\right]\) where \(T\subseteq U\) and \(P_{T}\) is the diagonal projection matrix with diagonal entries \(\chi_{T}\left(  u_{i}\right)\). Then for the singleton \(\left\{  u_{i}\right\}  \subseteq U\), the probability of the outcome \(u_{i}\) conditioned by the _superposition_ event \(\Sigma S\) is \(\Pr\left(  \left\{  u_{i}\right\}  |\Sigma S\right)  =\left\langle u_{i}|s\right\rangle ^{2}\), the Born Rule. Thus the Born Rule arises naturally from the mathematics of superposition when superposition events are added to ordinary finite probability theory. No further explanation is required when the mathematics uses \(\mathbb{C}^{n}\) instead of \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) except that the square \(\left\langle u_{i}|s\right\rangle ^{2}\) is the absolute square \(\left\vert \left\langle u_{i}|s\right\rangle \right\vert ^{2}\).

Publisher

Qeios Ltd

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3