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Absorbers in the Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

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Abstract

The transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics, following the time-symmetric formulation of electrodynamics, uses retarded and advanced solutions of the Schrödinger equation and its complex conjugate to understand quantum phenomena by means of transactions. A transaction occurs between an emitter and a specific absorber when the emitter has received advanced waves from all possible absorbers. Advanced causation always raises the specter of paradoxes, and it must be addressed carefully. In particular, different devices involving contingent absorbers or various types of interaction-free measurements have been proposed as threatening the original version of the transactional interpretation. These proposals will be analyzed by examining in each case the configuration of absorbers and, in the special case of the so-called quantum liar experiment, by carefully following the development of retarded and advanced waves through the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We will show that there is no need to resort to the hierarchy of transactions that some have proposed, and will argue that the transactional interpretation is consistent with the block-universe picture of time.

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Notes

  1. It is argued in [20] that delayed-choice experiments present a very similar difficulty for standard quantum mechanics as do contingent absorber experiments for TI.

  2. A related setup was proposed by D.J. Miller (private communication).

  3. In [13, 14] the right-hand side of (1) is called an x + spin state, but it is really an eigenstate of the Pauli matrix σ y , not of σ x .

  4. The setup of Fig. 4 was originally called “inverse EPR” or “time-reversed EPR” while the one of Fig. 3 was called “hybrid MZI-EPR experiment”. We follow [19] in referring to both as the QLE.

  5. See [38]. The QLE has also been analyzed within the block-universe picture in [15, 36] which, like the present paper, avoid particle paths. These references, however, do not introduce real offer and confirmation waves, and claim that relations between the experimental equipment are the fundamental ontological constituents.

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Acknowledgements

L.M. is grateful to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for financial support.

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  1. Département de Physique, Université du Québec, Trois-Rivières, QC, G9A 5H7, Canada

    Jean-Sébastien Boisvert & Louis Marchildon

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  1. Jean-Sébastien Boisvert
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  2. Louis Marchildon
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Correspondence to Louis Marchildon.

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Boisvert, JS., Marchildon, L. Absorbers in the Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Found Phys 43, 294–309 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-012-9695-z

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