Abstract
The outcome of a single quantum experiment is unpredictable, except in a pure-state limit. The definite process that takes place in the apparatus may either be intrinsically random or be explainable from a deeper theory. While the first scenario is the standard lore, the latter implies that quantum mechanics is emergent. In that case, it is likely that one has to reconsider radiation by accelerated charges as a physical effect, which thus must be compensated by an energy input. Stochastic electrodynamics, for example, asserts that the vacuum energy arises from classical fluctuations with energy 1/2ℏω per mode. In such theories the stability of the hydrogen ground state will arise from energy input from fluctuations and output by radiation, hence due to an energy throughput. That flux of energy constitutes an arrow of time, which we call the "subquantum arrow of time". It is related to the stability of matter and it is more fundamental than, e.g., the thermodynamic and cosmological arrows.
Highlights
Time and tide wait for no man ProverbThe arrow of time: why do we get older, never younger? has bothered people and philosophers since long
From the analysis of ideal measurements, we conclude that quantum mechanics (QM) itself describes the statistics of measurement outcomes
There is no role for the observer, except that observation allows to update the knowledge about the ensemble (“wave function collapse”)
Summary
The arrow of time: why do we get older, never younger? has bothered people and philosophers since long. The Curie-Weiss model for a quantum measurement and its dynamics Considering a model for a quantum measurement, there are three important issues to be explained: truncation of the density matrix (vanishing of Schrodinger cat terms); registration, the stable indication of the measurement outcome by the pointer variable, and the possibility of reduction, to update our knowledge about the ensemble of tested systems on the basis of measurement outcomes [2] For the latter, one needs to explain that single measurements have definite outcomes even though quantum mechanics is a wave theory, that is, to be able to speak about individual events, even though quantum mechanics is an ensemble theory. The third stage of the measurement is a new one, not discussed in the literature until recently, appearing first in version 3 of the arXiv preprint of our review [2]
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