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Quantum mechanics? It's all fun and games until someone loses an $i$

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arxiv 2206.15343 v2 pith:VH26KRRI submitted 2022-06-30 quant-ph

classification quant-ph
keywords quantummechanicstheorycomplexreferencerulesicsaddition
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abstract

QBism regards quantum mechanics as an addition to probability theory. The addition provides an extra normative rule for decision-making agents concerned with gambling across experimental contexts, somewhat in analogy to the double-slit experiment. This establishes the meaning of the Born Rule from a QBist perspective. Moreover it suggests that the best way to formulate the Born Rule for foundational discussions is with respect to an informationally complete reference device. Recent work [DeBrota, Fuchs, and Stacey, Phys. Rev. Res. 2, 013074 (2020)] has demonstrated that reference devices employing symmetric informationally complete POVMs (or SICs) achieve a minimal quantumness: They witness the irreducible difference between classical and quantum. In this paper, we attempt to answer the analogous question for real-vector-space quantum theory. While standard quantum mechanics seems to allow SICs to exist in all finite dimensions, in the case of quantum theory over the real numbers it is known that SICs do not exist in most dimensions. We therefore attempt to identify the optimal reference device in the first real dimension without a SIC (i.e., $d=4$) in hopes of better understanding the essential role of complex numbers in quantum mechanics. In contrast to their complex counterparts, the expressions that result in a QBist understanding of real-vector-space quantum theory are surprisingly complex.

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Cited by 2 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Real Quantum Field Theory, J-Quantization, and Standard Model

    hep-th 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Quantum field theory can be reformulated entirely in real numbers by substituting the matrix J for i, with all physical predictions unchanged.

  2. Beyond morphophoricity: $s$-tight IC measurements in geometric generalised probabilistic theories

    quant-ph 2025-07 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

    Tight IC measurements in geometric GPTs are characterized as the unique measurements whose canonical generalized Urgleichung is the classical total probability law plus one correction term.

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