Deriving the Born Rule from a model of the quantum measurement process

Abstract

The quantum mechanics postulate called the Born Rule attributes a probabilistic meaning to a wave function. This paper derives the Born Rule from other quantum principles along with a model of the measurement process. The nondeterministic nature of quantum measurements is hypothesized to arise from an ignorance of the quantum states of a measuring device's microscopic components. Their interactions with a system to be measured are modeled heuristically with any member of a particular class of stochastic processes, each of which generate the Born Rule. One member of the class appears particularly compatible with properties expected of quantum interactions.