Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

H. Nikolic

Publications and source records attributed to H. Nikolic.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2019

Relativistic Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory

A general formulation of classical relativistic particle mechanics is presented, with an emphasis on the fact that superluminal velocities and nonlocal interactions are compatible with relativity. Then a manifestly relativistic-covariant formulation of relativistic quantum mechanics (QM) of fixed number of particles (with or without spin) is presented, based on many-time wave functions and the spacetime probabilistic interpretation. These results are used to formulate the Bohmian interpretation of relativistic QM in a manifestly relativistic-covariant form. The results are also generalized to quantum field theory (QFT), where quantum states are represented by wave functions depending on an infinite number of spacetime coordinates. The corresponding Bohmian interpretation of QFT describes an infinite number of particle trajectories. Even though the particle trajectories are continuous, the appearance of creation and destruction of a finite number of particles results from quantum theory of measurements describing entanglement with particle detectors.

hep-th↗
arXiv2019

Bohmian mechanics for instrumentalists

We formulate Bohmian mechanics (BM) such that the main objects of concern are macroscopic phenomena, while microscopic particle trajectories only play an auxiliary role. Such a formulation makes it easy to understand why BM always makes the same measurable predictions as standard quantum mechanics (QM), irrespectively of the details of microscopic trajectories. Relativistic quantum field theory (QFT) is interpreted as an effective long-distance theory that at smaller distances must be replaced by some more fundamental theory. Analogy with condensed-matter physics suggests that this more fundamental theory could have a form of non-relativistic QM, offering a simple generic resolution of an apparent conflict between BM and relativistic QFT.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2017

Interpretation miniatures

Most physicists do not have patience for reading long and obscure interpretation arguments and disputes. Hence, to attract attention of a wider physics community, in this paper various old and new aspects of quantum interpretations are explained in a concise and simple (almost trivial) form. About the "Copenhagen" interpretation, we note that there are several different versions of it and explain how to make sense of "local non-reality" interpretation. About the many-world interpretation, we explain that it is neither local nor non-local, that it cannot explain the Born rule, that it suffers from the preferred basis problem, and that quantum suicide cannot be used to test it. About the Bohmian interpretation, we explain that it is analogous to dark matter, use it to explain that there is no big difference between non-local correlation and non-local causation, and use some condensed-matter ideas to outline how non-relativistic Bohmian theory could be a theory of everything. We also explain how different interpretations can be used to demystify the delayed choice experiment, to resolve the problem of time in quantum gravity, and to provide alternatives to quantum non-locality. Finally, we explain why is life compatible with the 2nd law.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2017

Is zero-point energy physical? A toy model for Casimir-like effect

Zero-point energy is generally known to be unphysical. Casimir effect, however, is often presented as a counterexample, giving rise to a conceptual confusion. To resolve the confusion we study foundational aspects of Casimir effect at a qualitative level, but also at a quantitative level within a simple toy model with only 3 degrees of freedom. In particular, we point out that Casimir vacuum is not a state without photons, and not a ground state for a Hamiltonian that can describe Casimir force. Instead, Casimir vacuum can be related to the photon vacuum by a non-trivial Bogoliubov transformation, and it is a ground state only for an effective Hamiltonian describing Casimir plates at a fixed distance. At the fundamental microscopic level, Casimir force is best viewed as a manifestation of van der Waals forces.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2016

Proof that Casimir force does not originate from vacuum energy

We present a simple general proof that Casimir force cannot originate from the vacuum energy of electromagnetic (EM) field. The full QED Hamiltonian consists of 3 terms: the pure electromagnetic term $H_{\rm em}$, the pure matter term $H_{\rm matt}$ and the interaction term $H_{\rm int}$. The $H_{\rm em}$-term commutes with all matter fields because it does not have any explicit dependence on matter fields. As a consequence, $H_{\rm em}$ cannot generate any forces on matter. Since it is precisely this term that generates the vacuum energy of EM field, it follows that the vacuum energy does not generate the forces. The misleading statements in the literature that vacuum energy generates Casimir force can be boiled down to the fact that $H_{\rm em}$ attains an implicit dependence on matter fields by the use of the equations of motion and the illegitimate treatment of the implicit dependence as if it was explicit. The true origin of the Casimir force is van der Waals force generated by $H_{\rm int}$.

hep-th↗
arXiv2015

Gravitational crystal inside the black hole

Crystals, as quantum objects typically much larger than their lattice spacing, are a counterexample to a frequent prejudice that quantum effects should not be pronounced at macroscopic distances. We propose that the Einstein theory of gravity only describes a fluid phase and that a phase transition of crystallization can occur under extreme conditions such as those inside the black hole. Such a crystal phase with lattice spacing of the order of the Planck length offers a natural mechanism for pronounced quantum-gravity effects at distances much larger than the Planck length. A resolution of the black-hole information paradox is proposed, according to which all information is stored in a crystal-phase remnant with size and mass much above the Planck scale.

hep-th↗
arXiv2015

AdS/CFT without holography: A hidden dimension on the CFT side and implications for black-hole entropy

We propose a new non-holographic formulation of AdS/CFT correspondence, according to which quantum gravity on AdS and its dual non-gravitational field theory both live in the same number D of dimensions. The field theory, however, appears (D-1)-dimensional because the interactions do not propagate in one of the dimensions. The D-dimensional action for the field theory can be identified with the sum over (D-1)-dimensional actions with all possible values $Λ$ of the UV cutoff, so that the extra hidden dimension can be identified with $Λ$. Since there are no interactions in the extra dimension, most of the practical results of standard holographic AdS/CFT correspondence transcribe to non-holographic AdS/CFT without any changes. However, the implications on black-hole entropy change significantly. The maximal black-hole entropy now scales with volume, while the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is interpreted as the minimal possible black-hole entropy. In this way, the non-holographic AdS/CFT correspondence offers a simple resolution of the black-hole information paradox, consistent with a recently proposed gravitational crystal.

hep-th↗
arXiv2015

Internal environment: What is it like to be a Schrodinger cat?

The possibility of quantum interference of a composite object with many internal degrees of freedom is studied, such that the internal degrees play a role of an internal environment. In particular, if the internal degrees have a capacity for an irreversible record of which-path information, then the internal-environment induced decoherence prevents external experimentalists from observing interference. Interference can be observed only if the interfering object is sufficiently isolated from the external environment, so that the object cannot record which-path information. Extrapolation to a hypothetical interference experiment with a conscious object implies that being a Schrodinger cat would be like being an ordinary cat living in a box without any information about the world external to the box.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2015

Violation of unitarity by Hawking radiation does not violate energy-momentum conservation

An argument by Banks, Susskind and Peskin (BSP), according to which violation of unitarity would violate either locality or energy-momentum conservation, is widely believed to be a strong argument against non-unitarity of Hawking radiation. We find that the whole BSP argument rests on the crucial assumption that the Hamiltonian is not highly degenerate, and point out that this assumption is not satisfied for systems with many degrees of freedom. Using Lindblad equation, we show that high degeneracy of the Hamiltonian allows local non-unitary evolution without violating energy-momentum conservation. Moreover, since energy-momentum is the source of gravity, we argue that energy-momentum is necessarily conserved for a large class of non-unitary systems with gravity. Finally, we explicitly calculate the Lindblad operators for non-unitary Hawking radiation and show that they conserve energy-momentum.

hep-th↗
arXiv2014

The trivial solution of the gravitational energy-momentum tensor problem

In the literature one often finds the claim that there is no such thing as an energy-momentum tensor for the gravitational field, and consequently, that the total energy-momentum conservation can only be defined in terms of a gravitational energy-momentum pseudo-tensor. Nevertheless, by relaxing the assumption that gravitational energy-momentum tensor should only depend on first derivatives of the metric, the Einstein equation leads to a trivial result that gravitational energy-momentum tensor is essentially the Einstein tensor. We discuss various peculiarities of such a definition of energy-momentum are argue that all these peculiarities have a sensible physical interpretation.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2014

If time is a local observable, then Hawking radiation is unitary

In the usual formulation of quantum theory, time is a global classical evolution parameter, not a local quantum observable. On the other hand, both canonical quantum gravity (which lacks fundamental time-evolution parameter) and the principle of spacetime covariance (which insists that time should be treated on an equal footing with space) suggest that quantum theory should be slightly reformulated, in a manner that promotes time to a local observable. Such a reformulated quantum theory is unitary in a more general sense than the usual quantum theory. In particular, this promotes the non-unitary Hawking radiation to a unitary phenomenon, which avoids the black-hole information paradox.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2014

Suppressing Hawking radiation by quantum Zeno effect

We present evidence that quantum Zeno effect, otherwise working only for microscopic systems, may also work for large black holes (BH's). The expectation that a BH geometry should behave classically at time intervals larger than the Planck time t_Pl indicates that the quantum process of measurement of classical degrees of freedom takes time of the order of t_Pl. Since BH has only a few classical degrees of freedom, such a fast measurement makes a macroscopic BH strongly susceptible to the quantum Zeno effect, which repeatedly collapses the quantum state to the initial one, the state before the creation of Hawking quanta. By this mechanism, Hawking radiation from a BH of mass M is strongly suppressed by a factor of the order of m_Pl/M.

hep-th↗
arXiv2014

How (not) to teach Lorentz covariance of the Dirac equation

In the textbook proofs of Lorentz covariance of the Dirac equation, one treats the wave function as a spinor and gamma matrices as scalars, leading to a quite complicated formalism with several pedagogic drawbacks. As an alternative, I propose to teach Dirac equation and its Lorentz covariance by using a much simpler, but physically equivalent formalism, in which these drawbacks do not appear. In this alternative formalism, the wave function transforms as a scalar and gamma matrices as components of a vector, such that the standard physically relevant bilinear combinations do not change their transformation properties. The alternative formalism allows also a natural construction of some additional non-standard bilinear combinations with well-defined transformation properties.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2013

Time and probability: From classical mechanics to relativistic Bohmian mechanics

Bohmian mechanics can be generalized to a relativistic theory without preferred foliation, with a price of introducing a puzzling concept of spacetime probability conserved in a scalar time. We explain how analogous concept appears naturally in classical statistical mechanics of relativistic particles, with scalar time being identified with the proper time along particle trajectories. The conceptual understanding of relativistic Bohmian mechanics is significantly enriched by this classical insight. In particular, the analogy between classical and Bohmian mechanics suggests the interpretation of Bohmian scalar time as a quantum proper time different from the classical one, the two being related by a nonlocal scale factor calculated from the wave function. In many cases of practical interest, including the macroscopic measuring apparatus, the fundamental spacetime probability explains the more familiar space probability as an emergent approximate description. Requiring that the quantum proper time in the classical limit should reduce to the classical proper time, we propose that only massive particles have Bohmian trajectories. An analysis of the macroscopic measuring apparatus made up of massive particles restores agreement with the predictions of standard quantum theory.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2013

Can a wormhole be interpreted as an EPR pair?

Recently, Maldacena and Susskind arXiv:1306.0533 and Jensen and Karch arXiv:1307.1132 argued that a wormhole can be interpreted as an EPR pair. We point out that a convincing justification of such an interpretation would require a quantitative evidence that correlations between two ends of the wormhole are equal to those between the members of the EPR pair. As long as the existing results do not contain such evidence, the interpretation of wormhole as an EPR pair does not seem justified.

hep-th↗
arXiv2013

Solipsistic hidden variables

We argue that it is logically possible to have a sort of both reality and locality in quantum mechanics. To demonstrate this, we construct a new quantitative model of hidden variables (HV's), dubbed solipsistic HV's, that interpolates between the orthodox no-HV interpretation and nonlocal Bohmian interpretation. In this model, the deterministic point-particle trajectories are associated only with the essential degrees of freedom of the observer, and not with the observed objects. In contrast with Bohmian HV's, nonlocality in solipsistic HV's can be substantially reduced down to microscopic distances inside the observer. Even if such HV's may look philosophically unappealing to many, the mere fact that they are logically possible deserves attention.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2012

Evidence for Bohmian velocities from conditional Schrodinger equation

It is often argued that measurable predictions of Bohmian mechanics cannot be distinguished from those of a theory with arbitrarily modified particle velocities satisfying the same equivariance equation. By considering the wave function of a closed system in a state with definite total energy, we argue that a distinction in measurable predictions is possible. Even though such a wave function is time-independent, the conditional wave function for a subsystem depends on time through the time-dependent particle trajectories not belonging to the subsystem. If these trajectories can be approximated by classical trajectories, then the conditional wave function can be approximated by a wave function which satisfies Schrodinger equation in a classical time-dependent potential, which is in good agreement with observations. However, such an approximation cannot be justified for particle velocities significantly deviating from the Bohmian ones, implying that Bohmian velocities are observationally preferred.

quant-ph↗