A Stronger Theorem Against Macro-realism

Allen, John-Mark A.; Maroney, Owen; Gogioso, Stefano

doi:10.22331/q-2017-07-14-13

Cited by 17 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…It is less known that eigenpreparation supported models are also in conflict with quantum mechanics. This was shown by Allen, Maroney, and Gogioso (2016) for quantum systems with Hilbert spaces of dimension greater than 3. In section 3.2 we show that this also applies to 3-dimensional Hilbert spaces.…”

Section: Eigenpreparation Supported and Undermining Modelsmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…In Section 3 we review how eigenpreparation mixing and eigenpreparation supported models are incompatible with quantum theory for Hilbert spaces with dimension two or more and three or more respectively, extending the earlier result in (Allen, Maroney, and Gogioso, 2016). However, in Section 4 we show that the distinction between eigenpreparation supported and eigenpreparation undermining macroscopic realism needed for this result, is subject to finite precision loopholes, which means that no experimental test can directly distinguish them.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

“…2 In this paper we follow the analysis of Maroney and Timpson, who identified three types of macroscopic realism, and argued that experiments violating the Leggett-Garg inequality only ruled out one, albeit rather natural, type. Allen, Maroney, and Gogioso (2016), building on earlier work by Allen (2016), then showed problems for a second type. However, the distinction between this type, and the third remaining type as introduced by Maroney and Timpson, is not noise tolerant, and so Allen's result can not be directly subjected to experimental testing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Whether quantum mechanics is eigenpreparation supported has been an open question until quite recently. Maroney and Timpson (2017) noted that, for 2-dimensional systems, the model introduced by Kochen and Specker (1967) serves as an example of an eigenpreparation supported model, while Allen, Maroney, and Gogioso (2016) showed that no such model exists if the dimension is greater than 3. In this section we give a simplified sketch of a proof to show how even in the 3-dimensional case quantum mechanics does not admit an eigenpreparation supported model.…”

Section: Quantum Mechanics Is Eigenpreparation Underminingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Constraints on macroscopic realism without assuming non-invasive measurability

Hermens

Maroney

2018

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in

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Macroscopic realism is the thesis that macroscopically observable properties must always have definite values. The idea was introduced by Leggett and Garg (1985), who wished to show a conflict with the predictions of quantum theory, by using it to derive an inequality that quantum theory violates. However, Leggett and Garg's analysis required not just the assumption of macroscopic realism per se, but also that the observable properties could be measured non-invasively. In recent years there has been increasing interest in experimental tests of the violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality, but it has remained a matter of controversy whether this second assumption is a reasonable requirement for a macroscopic realist view of quantum theory. In a recent critical assessment Maroney and Timpson (2017) identified three different categories of macroscopic realism, and argued that only the simplest category could be ruled out by Leggett-Garg inequality violations. Allen, Maroney, and Gogioso (2016) then showed that the second of these approaches was also incompatible with quantum theory in Hilbert spaces of dimension 4 or higher. However, we show that the distinction introduced by Maroney and Timpson between the second and third approaches is not noise tolerant, so unfortunately Allen's result, as given, is not directly empirically testable. In this paper we replace Maroney and Timpson's three categories with a parameterization of macroscopic realist models, which can be related to experimental observations in a noise tolerant way, and recover the original definitions in the noise-free limit. We show how this parameterization can be used to experimentally rule out classes of macroscopic realism in Hilbert spaces of dimension 3 or higher, without any use of the non-invasive measurability assumption. Even for relatively low precision experiments, this will rule out the original category of macroscopic realism, that is tested by the Leggett-Garg inequality, while as the precision of the experiments increases, all cases of the second category and many cases of the third category, will become experimentally ruled out.

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Section: Eigenpreparation Supported and Undermining Modelsmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Section: Quantum Mechanics Is Eigenpreparation Underminingmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Constraints on macroscopic realism without assuming non-invasive measurability

Hermens

Maroney

2018

Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in

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“…These assumptions codify classical physics but are contradicted by most interpretations of quantum theory. There exist at least three alternative readings of macrorealism [21][22][23]: Here we adopt the 'eigenstate-mixture' interpretation that is most amenable to experimental test and arguably most relevant [24] to models of dynamical wavefunction col-lapse [25]. The original proposal from LG called for determination of several two-time correlation functions -a daunting challenge in the laboratory.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Subtleties of witnessing quantum coherence in nonisolated systems

et al. 2018

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Identifying non-classicality unambiguously and inexpensively is a long-standing open challenge in physics. The No-Signalling-In-Time protocol was developed as an experimental test for macroscopic realism, and serves as a witness of quantum coherence in isolated quantum systems by comparing the quantum state to its completely dephased counterpart. We show that it provides a lower bound on a certain resource-theoretic coherence monotone. We go on to generalise the protocol to the case where the system of interest is coupled to an environment. Depending on the manner of the generalisation, the resulting witness either reports on system coherence alone, or on a disjunction of system coherence with either (i) the existence of non-classical system-environment correlations or (ii) non-negligible dynamics in the environment. These are distinct failure modes of the Born approximation in non-isolated systems.

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Emergence in Context

Bishop

Silberstein

Pexton

2022

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This is a book about the multidisciplinary topic of emergence. Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how order, stability, and novelty are possible and how they happen. How can order come out of disorder? We provide a new account of emergence, contextual emergence, that attempts to answer these questions. Contextual emergence is grounded primarily in the sciences, as opposed to logic or metaphysics. It is both an explanatory and ontological account of emergence that gets us beyond the impasse between “weak” and “strong” emergence in the emergence debates. Contextual emergence challenges the “foundationalist” or hierarchical picture of reality. It emphasizes the ontological and explanatory fundamentality of multiscale stability conditions and their contextual constraints, often operating globally over interconnected, interdependent, and interacting entities and their multiscale relations. Contextual emergence focuses on the conditions that make the existence, stability, and persistence of emergent systems and their states and observables possible. These conditions and constraints are irreducibly multiscale relations, so it is not surprising that scientific explanation is often multiscale. Such multiscale conditions act as gatekeepers for systems to access modal possibilities (e.g. reducing or enhancing a system’s degrees of freedom). Using examples from across the sciences ranging from physics to biology to neuroscience and beyond, we demonstrate that there is an empirically well-grounded, viable alternative to ontological reductionism coupled with explanatory antireductionism (weak emergence) and ontological disunity coupled with the impossibility of robust scientific explanation (strong emergence). Central metaphysics of science concerns are also addressed.

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A Stronger Theorem Against Macro-realism

Cited by 17 publications

References 37 publications

Constraints on macroscopic realism without assuming non-invasive measurability

Constraints on macroscopic realism without assuming non-invasive measurability

Subtleties of witnessing quantum coherence in nonisolated systems

Emergence in Context

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