GBPhysicsForums — wsowrssios » Forums » ENONG HATRED Login TER Forums > Physics > Quantum Physics > The general structure of relativistic QFTs 1)- Svanhees71 + © Jun 8, 2022: Faua} [ie snes vanhees71 Sy 220,664 Since ia [Bhs Aor) [FY Gov ener] (208 ae onaso Summary: | try to clarify some misunderstandings about the general structure of relativistic QFT. Particularly the important defining property of "locality’ox Stylish & Comfortable Footwear Ina recent thread about Bell tests etc. it has been claimed my point of view of “locality" where “non-mainstream physics’. Of course, | cannot give a complete summary of the foundations in a forum posting, as demanded by @DrChinese there. The most clear treatment, particularly emphasizing the pivotal role the principle of ‘microcausility” and thus “locality” plays in the QFT formulation of relativistic QT, can be found in S. Weinberg, The Quantum Theory of Fields, vol. 1, Cam. Uni. Press (1995) The first step in the construction of a relativistic QT is the analysis of the unitary (ray) representations of the underlying spacetime symmetry, ie, the proper orthochronous Poincare group, which is a semidirect product of space-time translations and proper orthochronous Lorentz transformations. Instead of this group, its covering ‘group is relevant in QT, ie, the proper orthochronous Lorentz group is substituted by its covering group, SL(2, C). There are non non-trivial central extensions (in contradistinction to the analog case of the Galiei group in non-relativistic Q1), ie, one can concentrate on the unitary irreducible representations.the “particles at rest, ie, B = 0 and since pp = m4 p? ¢ {-Lm}), For massless representations there is only helicity, ie, except for s — 0, where there is no polarization degree of freedom, there are only two polarization states, h— +s, where the helicity isthe component ofthe total angular momentum of the particle in direction of its momentum, and p® € {+|p]}. A it further turns out, so far the only successful realization of relativistic QT is in terms of local (sic) relativistic ‘quantum field theories (QF), ie, one realizes the unitary irteps. ofthe Poincare group, described above with local field operators w,(2), which transform according to a finite-dimensional representation of the proper orthochronous Lorentz goup characterized by two numbers (f,k’) with kk’ € {0,1/2,1,...}. This representation then contains all the representations of the rotations with j ¢ {|k — K|,|k— W|-+1,...k-+R}, and the field equations of motion thus must “project out all the “unwanted! representations except the representation j of the rotation group one likes to describe a particle with this spin, j. Ths leads to the usual well-known field equations lke Klein-Gordon, Dirac (where one puts together (1/2, 0) © (0, 1/2) to also represent space reflections in addition to the proper orthochronous Lorentz transformations), and massless spin- 1 particles (which are necessarily “gauge fields" in order to have only two helcty polarization degrees of freeclom rather than some continuos polarization degrees of freedom corresponding to more general representations of the socalled "little group" of the massless representations, which is ISO(2) rather than SO{3) in the massive case) Then to implement interactions one realizes that to get a well-defined unitary scattering mattix, that is Poincare covariant and fulfiles the cluster-decomposition principle one has to implement the micracausality constraint, Le. the Hamilton density must commute with any local observable at space-like distances of their arguments: It turns out that the local fields corresponding to spin must be quantized as fermions (bosons) if i halt-integer {inteaen, which is the famous spin statistics theorem. In addition for these “locality” properties to hold each field‘one can show that also the CPT symmetry holds for any such (interacting) QFT, and the original goal is also achieved: One has a unitary Poincare-covariant $-mattix, fulfilling the cluster-decamposition principle, the latter being the very property demanded as "locality" in this standard sense of relativistic quantum physics. [As Weinberg stresses, it might not be the only way to build a QFT with these properties, but so far there is no ‘example for an alternative construction, and so far these standard formulation with local QFTs describe all the known particles and their interactions with high precision, Last but not least it also describes all the Bell tests with photons correctly, ie, itis a way to have "locality" on the ‘one hand, ie, a theory, within which it is impossible to have causal effects between space-like separated events due to the microcausality constraint, but on the other hand as any QT also relativistic QFT implies the existence of entangled states and the corresponding long-range correlations described by them, which can be used for all the successful Bell tests Partiucularly there is no contradiction between the “locality” of the QFT in the above described sense and the possibility to prepare entangled photon pairs of before uncorrelated photon pairs via “entanglement swapping! ‘as described in the other thread based on the work by Zeilinger et al Jian-Wei Pan, Dik Bouwmeester, Harald Weinfurter, and Anton Zeilinger, Entangling Photons That Never Interacted, PRL 80, 3891 (1998) perimental Entanglement Swapping: ‘The entanglement of photons 1 and 4 for the subensemble selected by a projective Bell measurement of photon 2 and 3 is due to the original preparation of the entangled pair of photons 1 and 2 as well as photons 3 and 4 (where the pairs (12) and (34) themselves are uncorrelated). Both the creation of these original entangled pairs as‘event with the pair (23) on photon 1 and/or photon 4, This is also what is meant in the paper, when they say the photons 1 and 4 "never interacted with one another or which have never been dynamically coupled by any other We experimentally entangle freely propagating particles that never physically interacted with one another or which have never been dynamically coupled by any other means. This demonstrates that {quantum entanglement requires the entangled particles neither to come fram a common source nor te have interacted in the past In our experiment we take two paits of polarization entangled photons and subject one photon from each pair to a Bellstate measurement. Ths results in projecting the other two ‘outgoing phatons into an entangled state, [S0031-9007(98)05813-4] So the results of this and other experiments with entangled states isin full accordance with both "locality" of interactions and the long-ranged correlations described by the “inseparabilty” of far distantly observed parts of an entangled system, leading to the specific correlations contradicting the predictions of all "local realistic” theories in Bell's sense, and afaik also Bell uses “local” in this standard sense of relativistic physics, ie, that space- like separated events cannot be causally connected, raw glenn, Lord Cre, gentzen and 6 others Answers and Repl| think you should post this (except for the introduction) as an Insight article, so that it does not get lost in the mass of postings! madrid, Orodrun,Grag Serharct and 9 others Deltaz (oreno pr] [Bags Aor] Gad Mende Make it in Germany vanhees/'1 said: 2457 Sustainable careers in green jobs - find out moreyou should fix the latex in the quoted portion above as well inthe follow (near the middle of the post) vanheos71 said: © ‘Summary: | ty to clarify some misunderstandings about the general structure of relativistic OFT. Particularly the important. defining property of “locality” ie, the Hamilton density 1409 must commute with any local observable mathcalO%y) at spaceske distances oftheir arguments: ‘$$(\hatymathcalshatiimatheal(OV}=0 \guad \texton \quad (y)2<088 vanheesr vanhees71 Sy 20664 ‘Thanks for pointing out the typos. I've corrected it. |, omvanhees71 said: © The entanglement of photons 1 and 4 for the subensemble selected by a projective Bell measurement of photon 2 and 3 is due to the original preparation of the entangled pair of photons 1 and 2 as well as photons 3 and 4 (where the pairs (12) and (34) themselves are uncorrelated). Both the creation ofthese original entangled pairs as well asthe selection process through coincidence measurements on photons (23) are explained by local interactions of the em. field withthe various “devices” used to manipulate them [.] My take on this is that QFT achieves “locality” through propagators reaching into the backward light cone, leading to some kind of retro-causation. Events involving photons with the "wrong properties" (e.g. wrong polarization) could never happen. Nature's book keeping is always consistent! vanhees71 2y 220668 What do you mean by “retro-causation"?vanhees71 &y 20664 wtt4e0 (esc ior [Bats Aor] [Fy Gand ener] 20 ae This wouldn't be acausality, QFT is to the contrary one way to assure that exactly such acausalities don't occur in relativistic QT (in contradistinction to the historical attempts to formulate relativistic QT in "1st-quantized form"), WernerQh eave m8 vanhees71 said: © This wouldn't be acausalty. Of course not. 'm not worried about causality. If one radioactive atom is surrounded by several detectors, how do you explain that at most one of the detectors will register the decay? Wouldn't all detectors be sensitive to the quantum field? How can you avoid that two detectors trigger, if evolution can only be forward in time? It is obvious that there is some dependence of earlier events on the available final states (events). I'd rather avoid the term causation, and talk about consistency of ourPeterDonis 38335 [Emertr [Biosghts 16,129 vanhees71 said: the principle of “microcausilty” and thus “locality In other words, you think “locality" means "microcausality”. But not everyone agrees with this definition of words. | emphasize (again, since this has come up in mutiple threads) that this isnot a dispute about physics. Nobody has disputed anything about the physics you are describing, The issue is purely one of words: you keep insisting that the word "locality" has to mean what you want it to mean, ie, "microcausality’, but not everyone agrees with that, The word "locality" is used in the literature to mean muliple different things. Aside from the insistence on one particular meaning of "locality", what you present in the OP of this thread is Useful information and would not be disputed by anyone. vanhees71 said: © ithas been claimed my point of view of "locality" where ‘non-mainstream physics’ Th he cnerifir tha claim ig that unui incistanea an ane narticular definition af lnealitv! ie “nnn-mainetraam,it does, The only thing that is disputed is your unwillingness to acknowledge that there are other definitions of locality’ in the literature besides the one you prefer. vanhees71 2y oteo (Besciece aior[ Bais anor] [Fy Gnd ener |[ 20 ae | think this indeed is what physicists mean when they talk about locality. The problem in fact is that people use the same word with other meanings, and this leads to confusion, including the claim it was no mainstream physics. t has indeed repeatedly claimed that this mainstream physics is under dispute and that it were necessary to Introduce a violation of locality in this sense to understand the findings in experiments realizing entanglement swapping, delayed-choice/quantum-eraser phenomena, teleportation etc. That's all | wanted to clarity maaens 16,128 PeterDonis vanhees1 said: ©Ithas indeed repeatedly claimed that this mainstream physics is under dispute No, it hasn't. The dispute is over your use of the word “locality”. Nobody has ever disputed the physics you have presented Ifyou disagree, please give a specific reference to a specific example. vanhees71 said: and that it were necessary to introduce a vilation of locality in this sense to understand the findings in experiments realizing entanglement swapping, delayed-choice/quantum-eraser phenomena, teleportation etc Nobody has claimed that QFT, with all of the properties you state, does not predict the correct results for these ‘experiments. The only dispute is over your use of the word "locality", which others do not agree is an appropriate word to use to describe such experimental results, But, as | have already noted, that is a dispute over words, not ‘over physics. Drchinese vanhees71 2 S206PeterDoni eas0a8s vanhees?1 said: © Ie was in the thread you just closed ,before | could answer the claim that my “point view" were not "mainstream physics That claim was about the use of the word "locality", | don't think there was any dispute about the actual physics vanhees71 said: © It’s atleast mainstream physi terminology in the HEP and nuclear physics as well as the quantum opties community That may indeed be the case, but those still are not the same as the entire quantum physics community as a whole, It would be nice if all of the different specialties within quantum physics would get together and agree on terminology, but unfortunately | don't expect that to happen any time soon, When there is any possibility of ‘confusion, my recommendation is always to not use the problematic term at all and to instead refer to the actual underlying condition in the theory (for example, say “spacelike separated measurements commute” instead of locality’ for QFN),Demystifier eunags7 ([Bescerce nasi] [Bis aor] [Br Goer ©: 5057 vanhees71 said: © Bell uses “local” inthis standard sense of relativistic physics, Le, that space-ike separated events cannot be causally connected. But Bell concludes that quantum theory is not local in that sense, while a minimal interpretation concludes that it is local. How would you explain this discrepancy? My answer: Bell assumes that some events exist even without measurement, while minimal interpretation is based ‘on the idea that unmeasured event is a nonsense. vanheesT azn ose Demystfier said: ®| don't think “event” is the right word here, May be “value of an observable”. vanhees7: Demystifier sagas Scene Advi] [B osghs Ahr [Gold Menor 1: S087 martinbn said: © | don't think “event” isthe right word here. May be “value of an observable". Bell would say ‘value of a beable". For him, itis very important to distinguish the notion of beable from the notion of observable. S28 150What is the difference in this context? If the value of an observable exists, then isn't that observable a beable? vanheesT® Demystifier sue7s7 (sie [Bans aor] [ Gaon 5 s00r martinbn said: © [What is the difference in this context? Ifthe value of an observable exists, then isnt that observable a beable? Conceptually, yes. But technically, observable is a self-adjoint operator and it's not clear what is the "value" of an ‘operator. Eigenvalue? Mean value? Weak value? Something else? vanheesT? vanhees71 2 20664 Fa nen tne Besoin rane 'Z tt amar WPT Reel ottag0Then @DrChinese should not make such claims! PeterDonis said: © That may indeed be the case, but those still are not the same asthe entire quantum physics community as a whole. It would be nice if ll ofthe different specialties within quantum physics would get together and agree on terminology, but Unfortunately I don't expect that to happen any time soon, When there is any possibilty of confusion, my recommendation ' always to not use the problematic term at all and to instead refer to the actual underlying condition in the theory (for locality” for QF) example, say “spacelike separated measurements commute” instead o That's why we always get into useless disputes about words. | strongly recommend to stick to the terminology of the “main-stream physics community’. Then we could concentrate on the really interesting things and not always discuss what the one or the other metaphysicist understands under "locality", “reality”, and all that, It was my hope that one could strictly shure all this non-physics stuff to the “interpretation forum’, but it's obviously not possible, because it seems that even very clear experimental real-world setups are discussed in a way which leads into the philosophical abyss of imprecisely defined "words protonssrecool and Lard estocost vanhees71 Sy mazoseaThis I don't understand, Where does Bell say this? I'm pretty sure that Bell was very well aware of the standard conception of the microcausality constraint underlying the very fundamentals of local (sic!) relativistic QFT. Demystfier said: © My answer: Bell assumes that some events exist even without measurement, while minimal interpretation is based on the idea that unmeasured events a nonsense. | thought Bell only assumes this for his “realistic HV models" I's clearly contradicting basic (minimally interpreted) QT, and that's the very point: He derives from the assumptions of locality (which is a feature of both is “local realistic HV models" and local relativistic QFT AND “realism, ie, that also unprepared observables take certain values. | think it's important to keep in mind that the state describes the preparation of the system rather than what's measured, and this is very important in our context too, because the preparation isin the very beginning of the here discussed kinds of Bell tests In the entanglement-swapping experiment it's the state described by two uncorrelated photon-pair Bell states. Everything that comes later is the measurement, and you just select (or even post-select) subensembles based on filter) measurements of the pair mixing one photon from each of the uncorrelated pair states (Photons 2+3 in the description of the paper). Only then, using the measurement protocoll for photons 1+4 you can check that now indeed photons 1+4 within each of the four subensembles is in the predicted entangled state. It's of course true that photons 1+4 have never interacted with each other or locally with any equipment. This entanglement of the subensemble is, however, not due to some “non-local interaction’ but due to the selection of the states based on the local measurements on the phons 2+3, given the initially prepared entagled photon pairs (1+2) and (3+4). So the preparation of the pair 1+4 in an entangled state by selections based on the preparation of the pairs 1+2 and 3+4 in the very beginning, and also this preparation procedure does at no place violate locality in the sense of relativistic QFTS.vanhees71 2y 220.664 o:t1480 (esc or [Bgis anor) [Fy cd ener] [BOR Demystfier said: ® Bell would say “value of a beable”, For him, its very important to distinguish the notion of beable from the notion of observable. “beable” is one of these buzzwords, | don't know what they are good for. 'd simply state that according to standard QT (no matter, whether relativistic or non-relativistic) it depends on the preparation of the system under consideration whether an observable takes a determined value or not and if not, how probable any possible ‘outcome of a measurement of this observable is predicted to be, vanhees71 2 S206 tao (Bescece ator] [Biss ar] [Er Gad ob] [PRE Aad Demystfier said: ®given by the spectrum of its describing self-adjoint operator, and the probability, given the state the system is prepared in when measured, is then given by Born’s rule, for the general case as where denotes an orthonormal set of eigenvectors of with eigenvalue Of course you can generalize this in the more modern way with POVMs, which is more flexible realistic in being able to also include, eg, the uncertainties of the measurement device itself (like temporal/spatial resolution of detectors etc), but | don't think that the fundamental questions we discuss here are much affected by those refinements of the quantum theory of measurements, Demystifier ease vanhees71 said: © This I don’t understand. Where does Bell say this? I'm pretty sure that Bell was very well aware ofthe standard conception of the microcausalty constraint underlying the very fundamentals of local (sic!) relativistic QFT See 2nd edition of his book, last chapter “La nouvelle cuisine” In Sec. 6 he says: "Could the no-superluminal-signalling of ‘local’ quantum field theory be regarded as an adequate formulation of the fundamental causalPeterDonis (Breve Bramns aoe 16,129 Demystfier said: ® But Bell concludes that quantum theory is ot local in that sense Bell never claims that spacelike separated measurements do not commute. "Causally connected” in this sense means “do not commu: Demystfier said: ® My answer: Bell assumes that some events exist even without measurement, while minimal interpretation s based on the idea that unmeasured event is a nonsense, Interpretation discussions are off topic in this forum. If you want to discuss interpretations, please start a new thread in the interpretations subforum,Ih Sec. 6he says: “Could the no-superluminal-signaling of loca’ quantum field theory be regarded as an adequate formulation of the fundamental causal structure of physical theory? Ido not think so In Sec. 8: "However it has turned out that quantum mechanics cannot be ‘completed’ into a locally causal theory, at least as long as one allows, 5 Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen did, freely operating experimenters Bell's definition of “a locally causal theory" here is not the same as the one @vanhees71 is using. Bell was not disagreeing on any physics. PeterDonis 38385 (Berar 16.28 sights ho vanhees71 said: © Then @DrChinese should not make such claims! Ifyou keep insisting on one meaning to a word that has multiple meanings in the literature, you are going to keep getting pushback vanhees71 said: ©But your terminology is not “the terminology of the mainstream physics community’, because there is no such thing in this case. There is not one "mainstream" terminology or one "mainstream" physics community involved here. I have already given my recommendation for avoiding useless disputes about words: stop using the words that are causing the problem. In this case, that means stop using the word “locality” altogether and say what you actually mean. If what you actually mean is "spacelike separated measurements commute” then say that. If what you actually mean is “the Bell inequalities are violated” then say that. (And I would make the same recommendation to @DrChinese.) Lynch 101, protonsarecool wirdoguy and tether person Lord Jestocost oun ess Maybe, it might be helpful to listen to Don Howard who makes the following remark in his paper "EINSTEIN ON LOCALITY AND SEPARABILITY" “Given their importance in what follows, the separability and locality principles should be clearly distinguished. To repeat: separability sys that spatially separated systems possess separate real states; locality adds that the state oftheory. Examples of the opposite sort, namely, of separable, non-local theories, are to be found among the non-local hidden-variable theories." sgentzen and vanhees71 vanhees71 &y 20.664 Bt Scece Ado [Bwsghs ar [Bak ents] [207 Awd eotaeo Demystfier said: ® ‘See 2nd edition of his book, last chapter "La nowvelle cuisine” In Sec. 6he says: "Could the no-superluminal-signaling of local quantum field theory be regarded as an adequate {formulation of the fundamental causal structure of physical theory? Ido not think so” Interesting. It would be even more interesting if he would have come up with a viable alternative. Maybe it could be a more satisfactory theory than relativistic QFT, which has its problems from a mathematical point of view. Demystfier said: © In sec. 8; "However it has turned out that auantum mechanics cannat bevanhees71 2 520,664 tence Avo |B tr [Ev ak eb] [ROE Awe enae0 PeterDonis said: © I you keep insisting on one meaning to a word that has multiple meanings in the literature, you are going to keep getting ppushback But your terminology is not “the terminology ofthe mainstream physics community’, because there is no such thing in this physics community involved here cease, There is not ane “mainstream” terminology or ane "mainsteea This is what you claim. | don't know, why you insist on using unclear language in physics discussions, Usually you always want peer-reviewed references for claims. So now, I'd like to see one for the claim there is another meaning of “locality” in the physics (literature. PeterDonis said: © [have already given my recommendation for avoiding useless disputes about words: stop using the words that are causing the problem. ln this case, that means stop using the word "locality" altogether and say what you actually mean. If what you actually mean is "spacelike separated measurements commute” then say that. If what you actually mean is “the Bell inequalities are violated then say that (And 1 would make the same recommendation to @DrChinese)martinbn 220K Science Aion ose Demystfier said: © ‘See 2nd edition of his book, last chapter “La nowvelle cuisine” In Sec. 6he says: “Could the no-superluminal-signaling of loca’ quantum field theory be regarded as an adequate formulation of the fundamental causal structure of physical theory? Ido not think so Hm, so Bell insists on his own definition. Sounds a bit ike @vanhees?1. @ vanhees71 &¢ 220,664 (Beste aor] [ Bs Aor] [By Got ener om4e0 PeterDonis said: © Bell never claims that spacelke separated measurements do not commute “Causally connected” in this sense means “do not commute”Interpretation discussions are offtopic inthis forum. Ifyou want to discuss interpretations, please start a new thread in the interpretations subforum. ‘This is well within the minimally interpreted realm of Q(F)T. It has nothing to do with interpretation. It's well defined mathematical property of QFT and has the clear physical interpretation, given above. vanhees71 2y 220668 11480 i Scece AoE ur [Fok eb] [ROE Awd Lord Jestocost said: ® Maybe, it might be helpful to listen to Don Howard who makes the following remark in his paper "EINSTEIN ON LOCALITY AND SEPARABILITY ‘Given their importance in what follows, the separability and locality principles should be clearly distinguished, To repeat: separability says that spatially separated systems possess separate real states; locality adds that the state of a system can be changed only by local eects, effects propagated with finite, subluminal velocities. There is no necessary connection between the two principles, though they are frequently stated os if they were one. Some theories conform to both principles, general relativity being an example of such a separable, locoltheary. Other theories conform to just one or the other Quantum ‘mechanics is, on my interpretation, a non-separable, local theory. Examples ofthe opposite sort namely, of separable, ‘non-tocat theories, ae tobe found among the non-Localhidden-variable theories"Lore Jestocost vanhees71 2y tScece Adora tr [Er ok ents] [207 Awd 11 4a0 PeterDonis said: © Bell's definition of "a locally causal theory” here isnot the same as the one @vanhees71 is using. Bell was not disagreeing on any physics How do you come to the conclusiion that Bell used the term in a different way I did? In the quote he explicitly spoke about "local quantum field theory’ ‘See 2nd edition of his book, last chapter "La nowvelle cuisine” In Sec. 6he says: “Could the no-superluminal-signalling of local quantum field theory be regarded as an adequate {formulation of the fundamental causal structure of physical theory? Ido not think so, ‘That he believes that local quantum field theory was not a satisfactory description of physics, is another point. 'd be keen to learn, which alternatives Bell had to offer. Unfortunately | don’t have the quoted book at hand.vanhees7!1 said: © That he believes that local quantum field theory was not a satisfactory description of physics, is another point. 'd be keen to lear, which alternatives Bell had to offer He thought that some Bohmian version of QFT is what we need, without fundamental Lorentz invariance, but stil with Lorentz invariant measurable predictions in the FAPP sense. Something very much in spirit with what | talk about in https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.05986 vanheesr? 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