Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published March 22, 2019 | Submitted
Book Section - Chapter Open

Mad-Dog Everettianism: Quantum Mechanics at Its Most Minimal

Abstract

To the best of our current understanding, quantum mechanics is part of the most fundamental picture of the universe. It is natural to ask how pure and minimal this fundamental quantum description can be. The simplest quantum ontology is that of the Everett or Many-Worlds interpretation, based on a vector in Hilbert space and a Hamiltonian. Typically one also relies on some classical structure, such as space and local configuration variables within it, which then gets promoted to an algebra of preferred observables. We argue that even such an algebra is unnecessary, and the most basic description of the world is given by the spectrum of the Hamiltonian (a list of energy eigenvalues) and the components of some particular vector in Hilbert space. Everything else—including space and fields propagating on it—is emergent from these minimal elements.

Additional Information

© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG. First Online: 22 March 2019. We are thankful to ChunJun (Charles) Cao for helpful conversations. This research is funded in part by the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech and by DOE grant DE-SC0011632.

Attached Files

Submitted - 1801.08132.pdf

Files

1801.08132.pdf
Files (254.1 kB)
Name Size Download all
md5:7093ca76b1e1edda65cfa28b652e3806
254.1 kB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 18, 2023