From Unitarity to Irreversibility: The Role of Infinite Tensor Products and Nested Wigner's Friends

2024/09/10 by Svozil, Karl
#FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)

paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.06470

Abstract

The transition from unitary, reversible von Neumann-Everett quantum processes to non-unitary, irreversible processes and measurements is explored through infinite tensor products interpreted as nested, chained, or iterated Wigner's friend scenarios. Infinite tensor products can disrupt unitary equivalence through sectorization and factorization, drawing parallels to concepts from real analysis, recursive mathematics, and statistical physics.

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