A defense of Hellwig-Kraus reductions

Abstract

Aharonov and Albert analyze a thought experiment which they believe shows that quantum mechanical state reductions occur along temporal hypersurfaces in Minkowski space. They conclude that the covariant state reduction theory of Hellwig and Kraus does not apply. In Part I of this paper we disagree with this interpretation of the A-A experiment, and show the adequacy of the H-K theory. In Part II we examine the belief that H-K reductions produce self contradicting causal loops, and/or give rise to absurd boundary conditions. These objections to the theory are shown to be unfounded.