Quantum Indeterminism and First Passage Random Walks in Hilbert Space

Abstract

We propose a new model for a measurement of a characteristic of a microscopic quantum state by a large system that selects stochastically the different eigenstates with appropriate quantum weights. Unlike previous works which formulate a modified Schrödinger equation or an explicit modified Hamiltonian, or more complicated mechanisms for reduction and decoherence to introduce transition to classical stochasticity, we propose the novel use of couplings to the environment, and random walks in the product Hilbert space of the combined system, with first passage stopping rules, which seem intuitively simple, as quantum weights and related stochasticity is a commonality that must be preserved under the widest range of applications, independent of the measured quantity and the specific properties of the measuring device.