Weakening the Born Rule - Towards a Stateless Formulation of Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

The notion of state vector is, in quantum mechanics, as central as it is problematic, as illustrates the wealth of publications about the sub- jects, including in particular the many attempts to obtain an acceptable interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this article, we propose a different approach, and initiate the study of a formulation of quantum mechanics, where the notion of state is entirely replaced by assertions about measurement outcomes. We define a notion of "verification" which represents the knowledge that one may have about the possible outcomes of the measurements performed on a quantum system, and express a set of logical rules which allow to reason about quantum systems using verification assertions only, and thus making no reference to the problematic notion of state.