{
  "id": "quant-ph/0610204",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2006-10-24T07:48:52.000Z",
  "updated": "2006-10-24T07:48:52.000Z",
  "title": "Quantum Dynamics without the Wave Function",
  "authors": [
    "Rafael D. Sorkin"
  ],
  "comment": "plainTeX, 24 pages, no figures. To appear in a special volume of {\\it Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General} entitled ``The Quantum Universe'' and dedicated to Giancarlo Ghirardi on the occasion of his 70th birthday. Most current version is available at http://www.physics.syr.edu/~sorkin/some.papers/ (or wherever my home-page may be)",
  "journal": "J.Phys.A40:3207-3222,2007",
  "doi": "10.1088/1751-8113/40/12/S20",
  "categories": [
    "quant-ph",
    "gr-qc",
    "hep-th",
    "math.LO"
  ],
  "abstract": "When suitably generalized and interpreted, the path-integral offers an alternative to the more familiar quantal formalism based on state-vectors, selfadjoint operators, and external observers. Mathematically one generalizes the path-integral-as-propagator to a {\\it quantal measure} $\\mu$ on the space $\\Omega$ of all ``conceivable worlds'', and this generalized measure expresses the dynamics or law of motion of the theory, much as Wiener measure expresses the dynamics of Brownian motion. Within such ``histories-based'' schemes new, and more ``realistic'' possibilities open up for resolving the philosophical problems of the state-vector formalism. In particular, one can dispense with the need for external agents by locating the predictive content of $\\mu$ in its sets of measure zero: such sets are to be ``precluded''. But unrestricted application of this rule engenders contradictions. One possible response would remove the contradictions by circumscribing the application of the preclusion concept. Another response, more in the tradition of ``quantum logic'', would accommodate the contradictions by dualizing $\\Omega$ to a space of ``co-events'' and effectively identifying reality with an element of this dual space.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2006-10-24T07:48:52.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "subjects": [
      "05.40.-a",
      "31.15.Kb",
      "03.65.Ta",
      "03.65.-w"
    ],
    "keywords": [
      "quantum dynamics",
      "wave function",
      "familiar quantal formalism",
      "rule engenders contradictions",
      "wiener measure expresses"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "journal article"
    ],
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 24,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "inspire": 729958
    }
  }
}