The Converse Madelung Question

Abstract

We pose the converse Madelung question: not whether Fisher information can reproduce quantum mechanics, but whether it is necessary. We work with minimal, physically motivated axioms on density and phase: locality, probability conservation, Euclidean invariance with a global phase symmetry, reversibility, and convex regularity. Within the resulting class of first order local Hamiltonian field theories, these axioms single out the canonical Poisson bracket on density and phase under the Dubrovin and Novikov assumptions for local hydrodynamic brackets. Using a pointwise, gauge covariant complex change of variables that maps density and phase to a single complex field, we show that the only convex, rotationally invariant, first derivative local functional of the density whose Euler Lagrange term yields a reversible completion that is exactly projectively linear is the Fisher functional. When its coefficient equals Planck constant squared divided by twice the mass, the dynamics reduce to the linear Schrodinger equation. For many body systems, a single local complex structure across sectors enforces the same relation species by species, fixing a single Planck constant. Galilean covariance appears through the Bargmann central extension, with the usual superselection consequences. Comparison with the Doebner and Goldin family identifies the reversible zero diffusion corner with linear Schrodinger dynamics. We provide operational falsifiers via residual diagnostics for the continuity and Hamilton Jacobi equations and report numerical minima at the Fisher scale that are invariant under Galilean boosts. In this setting, quantum mechanics emerges as a reversible fixed point of Fisher regularised information hydrodynamics. A code archive enables direct numerical checks, including a superposition stress test that preserves exact projective linearity within our axioms.