Decoherence, branching, and the Born rule in a mixed-state Everettian multiverse.

In Everettian quantum mechanics, justifications for the Born rule appeal to self-locating uncertainty or decision theory. Such justifications have focused exclusively on a pure-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a wavefunction. Recent works in quantum foundations suggest that it is viable t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Synthese Vol. 205; no. 4; pp. 1 - 33
Autores principales: Chua, Eugene Y. S., Chen, Eddy Keming
Formato: Artículo
Publicado: Springer Nature Apr2025
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:In Everettian quantum mechanics, justifications for the Born rule appeal to self-locating uncertainty or decision theory. Such justifications have focused exclusively on a pure-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a wavefunction. Recent works in quantum foundations suggest that it is viable to consider a mixed-state Everettian multiverse, represented by a (mixed-state) density matrix. Here, we discuss the conceptual foundations for decoherence and branching in a mixed-state multiverse, and extend arguments for the Born rule to this setting. This extended framework provides a unification of ‘classical’ and ‘quantum’ probabilities, and additional theoretical benefits, for the Everettian picture.