Destructive Interference as a Path to Resolving the Quantum Measurement Problem

Over the past several decades, there has been an accelerating trend to ever more accurate quantum sensors: sensors of time intervals (i.e., atomic clocks), sensors of magnetic fields (i.e., quantum magnetometers), and sensors of inertial motions (i.e., atom interferometers), to name just a few. With this trend has come a renewed interest in the problem of quantum mechanical measurement (i.e., collapse of the wavefunction), and though there have been many attempts to resolve the problem, there is still no wholly accepted resolution. Here, we discuss a little-explored path for resolving the issue that exploits wavefunction phase. To illustrate this path’s potential, we consider the notion of “eigenphase” sets that are disjoint among orthogonal eigenvectors. Wavefunction collapse then occurs because of constructive/destructive interference when a classical measuring device “phase-locks” to an incoming wavefunction. While the present work examines one method for exploiting wavefunction phase, its primary purpose is to more generally re-focus attention on wavefunction phase as a means for resolving the measurement problem that avoids many other solutions’ problematic aspects.