2024/09/04 by Miguel Gallego, Gallego, Miguel, Borivoje Dakić +1
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.03001
openalex publication_date 2024/09/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The quantum description of the microscopic world is incompatible with the classical description of the macroscopic world, both mathematically and conceptually. Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that classical mechanics emerges from quantum mechanics in the macroscopic limit. In this letter, we challenge this perspective and demonstrate that the behavior of a macroscopic system can retain all aspects of the quantum formalism, in a way that is robust against decoherence, particle losses and coarse-grained (imprecise) measurements. This departure from the expected classical description of macroscopic systems is not merely mathematical but also conceptual, as we show by the explicit violation of a Bell inequality and a Leggett-Garg inequality.