Tuesday, 1 March 2005
Towards Relativistic Quantum Histories: A Branching Space-Times Approach
Thomas Mueller, University Bonn, Philosophy
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract: It is notoriously difficult to combine quantum mechanics with relativity theory in a satisfactory way. In my talk, I wish to sketch an attempt at meeting some aspects of the challenge by combining the consistent histories approach to quantum mechanics with the logical framework of branching space-times.

The consistent histories approach to non-relativistic quantum mechanics describes the evolution of a closed quantum system in the form of a temporal stochastic process. I will first show that most aspects of that approach can be expressed naturally in the form of a probability theory based on the logical framework of branching time. The framework of branching space-times (BST), developed by Nuel Belnap in 1992, is a relativistic extension of branching time. There is thus some hope that a probability theory based on BST could be used to formulate a relativistic extension of the consistent histories formalism. In the second part of my talk I will therefore introduce BST probability theory and indicate some steps towards a formulation of relativistic quantum histories.

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