A Dynamical Theory of Quantum Measurement and Spontaneous Localization

Abstract

We develop a rigorous treatment of discontinuous stochastic unitary evolution for a system of quantum particles that interacts singularly with quantum "bubbles" at random instants of time. This model of a "cloud chamber" allows to watch and follow with a quantum particle along the trajectory in the cloud chamber by sequential unsharp localization of spontaneous scatterings of the bubbles. Thus, the continuous reduction and spontaneous localization theory is obtained as the result of quantum filtering theory, i.e., a theory describing the conditioning of the a priori quantum state by the measurement data. We show that in the case of indistinguishable particles the a posteriori dynamics is mixing, giving rise to an irreversible Boltzmann-type reduction equation. The latter coincides with the nonstochastic Schroedinger equation only in the mean field approximation, whereas the central limit yields Gaussian mixing fluctuations described by stochastic reduction equations of diffusive type.