TY - JOUR
T1 - On the weak measurement of velocity in bohmian mechanics
AU - Düprr, Detlef
AU - Goldstein, Sheldon
AU - Zanghì, Nino
N1 - Funding Information:
Acknowledgements The work of S. Goldstein was supported in part by NSF Grant DMS-0504504. That of N. Zanghì was supported in part by INFN.
PY - 2009/3
Y1 - 2009/3
N2 - In a recent article (Wiseman in New J. Phys. 9:165, 2007), Wiseman has proposed the use of so-called weak measurements for the determination of the velocity of a quantum particle at a given position, and has shown that according to quantum mechanics the result of such a procedure is the Bohmian velocity of the particle. Although Bohmian mechanics is empirically equivalent to variants based on velocity formulas different from the Bohmian one, and although it has been proven that the velocity in Bohmian mechanics is not measurable, we argue here for the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that Wiseman's weak measurement procedure indeed constitutes a genuine measurement of velocity in Bohmian mechanics. We reconcile the apparent contradictions and elaborate on some of the different senses of measurement at play here.
AB - In a recent article (Wiseman in New J. Phys. 9:165, 2007), Wiseman has proposed the use of so-called weak measurements for the determination of the velocity of a quantum particle at a given position, and has shown that according to quantum mechanics the result of such a procedure is the Bohmian velocity of the particle. Although Bohmian mechanics is empirically equivalent to variants based on velocity formulas different from the Bohmian one, and although it has been proven that the velocity in Bohmian mechanics is not measurable, we argue here for the somewhat paradoxical conclusion that Wiseman's weak measurement procedure indeed constitutes a genuine measurement of velocity in Bohmian mechanics. We reconcile the apparent contradictions and elaborate on some of the different senses of measurement at play here.
KW - Bohmian mechanics
KW - Uncertainty principle
KW - Weak measurement in quantum mechanics
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U2 - 10.1007/s10955-008-9674-0
DO - 10.1007/s10955-008-9674-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:67349200339
SN - 0022-4715
VL - 134
SP - 1023
EP - 1032
JO - Journal of Statistical Physics
JF - Journal of Statistical Physics
IS - 5-6
ER -