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Implications of a deeper level explanation of the deBroglie–Bohm version of quantum mechanics

Quantum Studies: Math. and Foundations 2(1)
Grössing, G.Fussy, S.Mesa Pascasio, J.Schwabl, H. Austrian Institute for Nonlinear Studies,
Vienna, Austria
2015 Physics

Elements of a “deeper level” explanation of the deBroglie–Bohm (dBB) version of quantum me- chanics are presented. Our explanation is based on an analogy of quantum wave-particle dual- ity with bouncing droplets in an oscillating medium, the latter being identified as the vacuum’s zero-point field. A hydrodynamic analogy of a similar type has recently come under criticism by Richardson et al., because despite striking similarities at a phenomenological level the governing equations related to the force on the particle are evidently different for the hydrodynamic and the quantum descriptions, respectively.

However, said differences are not relevant if a radically different use of said analogy is being made, thereby essentially referring to emergent processes in our model. If the latter are taken into account, one can show that the forces on the particles are identical in both the dBB and our model. In particular, this identity results from an exact matching of our emergent velocity field with the Bohmian “guiding equation”.

One thus arrives at an explanation involving a deeper, i.e. subquantum, level of the dBB version of quantum mechanics. We show in particular how the classically-local approach of the usual hydrodynamical modeling can be overcome and how, as a consequence, the configuration-space version of dBB theory for N particles can be completely substituted by a “superclassical” emergent dynamics of N particles in real 3-dimensional space.

The article was published in: Quantum Studies: Math. and Foundations 2(1): 133-140.

Full article

This work was supported (in part) by the Fetzer Franklin Fund of the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust.