Continuous Quantum Measurement: Local and Global Approaches

Abstract

In 1979 B. Menski suggested a formula for the linear propagator of a quantum system with continuously observed position in terms of a heuristic Feynman path integral. In 1989 the aposterior linear stochastic Schrödinger equation was derived by V. P. Belavkin describing the evolution of a quantum system under continuous (nondemolition) measurement. In the present paper, these two approaches to the description of continuous quantum measurement are brought together from the point of view of physics as well as mathematics. A self-contained deductions of both Menski's formula and the Belavkin equation is given, and the new insights in the problem provided by the local (stochastic equation) approach to the problem are described. Furthermore, a mathematically well-defined representations of the solution of the aposterior Schrödinger equation in terms of the path integral is constructed and shown to be heuristically equivalent to the Menski propagator.