2001/05/19 by Bob Coecke, Coecke, Bob
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0105093
Foundations of Physics 28, 1109--1135 (1998) --- submitted in 1996. 15 pages. Some corrections are made compared to the published version
arxiv created 2001/05/19 · openalex publication_date 2001/05/19 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We introduce an explicit definition for 'hidden correlations' on individual entities in a compound system: when one individual entity is measured, this induces a well-defined transition of the 'proper state' of the other individual entities. We prove that every compound quantum system described in the tensor product of a finite number of Hilbert spaces can be uniquely represented as a collection of individual(ized) (peudo-)entities between which there exist such hidden correlations. We investigate the significance of these hidden correlation representations within the so-called ``creation-discovery-approach'' and in particular their compatibility with the ``hidden measurement formalism''. This leads us to the introduction of the notions of 'soft' and 'hard' 'acts of creation' and to the observation that our approach can be seen as a theory of (pseudo-)individuals when compared to the standard quantum theory. (For a presentation of the ideas proposed in this paper within a quantum logical setting, yielding a structural theorem for the representation of a compound quantum system in terms of the Hilbert space tensor product, we refer to quant-ph/0008054.)