Deterministic Quantum State Separation in Integrated Photonics

We can use quantum theory to explain an enormous variety of phenomena by showing why they were to be expected and what they depend on. These explanations of probabilistic phenomena involve applications of the Born rule: to accept quantum theory is to let relevant Born probabilities guide one’s credences about presently inaccessible events. We use quantum theory to explain a probabilistic phenomenon by showing how its probabilities follow from a correct application of the Born rule, thereby exhibiting the phenomenon’s dependence on the quantum state to be assigned in circumstances of that type. This is not a causal explanation since a probabilistic phenomenon is not constituted by events that may manifest it: but each of those events does depend causally on events that actually occur in those circumstances. Born probabilities are objective and sui generis, but not all Born probabilities are chances.

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Assigning Values and States

10.1093/oso/9780198714057.003.0005 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Richard Healey

Keyword(s):

Quantum State ◽

Density Operator ◽

Entangled State ◽

Physical Situation ◽

Born Rule ◽

Correct Assignment ◽

Significant Magnitude ◽

Good Advice ◽

Empirical Significance ◽

Important Idea

If a quantum state is prescriptive then what state should an agent assign, what expectations does this justify, and what are the grounds for those expectations? I address these questions and introduce a third important idea—decoherence. A subsystem of a system assigned an entangled state may be assigned a mixed state represented by a density operator. Quantum state assignment is an objective matter, but the correct assignment must be relativized to the physical situation of an actual or hypothetical agent for whom its prescription offers good advice, since differently situated agents have access to different information. However this situation is described, it is true, empirically significant magnitude claims that make the description correct, while others provide the objective grounds for the agent’s expectations. Quantum models of environmental decoherence certify the empirical significance of these magnitude claims while also licensing application of the Born rule to others without mentioning measurement.

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