A talk on Quest for Foundational Understanding of Quantum Mechanics was conducted at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri campus, on September 2018. Dr. S. Aravinda (Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai) was the resource person.

Venue : N-003

Abstract

Quest for foundational understanding of Quantum Mechanics

Aravinda Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Taramani, Chennai.
Center for Foundational Studies, Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research, Bengaluru

Abstract : Quantum mechanics (QM) is a fundamental framework theory, which potentially can explain many aspects of modern science from sub-atomic particles to astronomical events. Still, one finds it counter intuitive and wonders: “What is the main message of QM? What is it telling about Nature’s nature?”. Recent developments in quantum foundations, in tandem with concomitant developments in quantum information theory and quantum computation, has given us new insights and tools to potentially answer these questions.  The current research attitude towards the foundations of QM can be broadly divided into two types: the operational approach and the ontological approach. In an operational approach, a physical theory is associated with its state space, and the primitive concepts are states, measurements and the probability distribution for measurement outcomes. The main goal behind this approach is to study the conceptual and mathematical structure of QM and to answer why Nature choose QM from among a broad variety of reasonable physical theories. In the ontological approach, the question of what lies behind the mathematical structure of QM is important. The issue of what the nature of the reality underlying QM is, and what the constraints on this realistic structure are, is at the heart of the ontological approach.

References

1. Popescu, Nonlocality beyond quantum mechanics, Nature Physics,10, pages 264–270 (2014)
2. Aravinda and R. Srikanth, Extending quantum mechanics entails extending special relativity, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 49, 205302 (2016).
3. Aravinda, R. Srikanth and A. Pathak, On the origin of nonclassicality in single systems, J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 50, 465303 (2017).
4. Aravinda, A. Mukherjee and M. Banik, Exclusivity principle and unphysicality of Garg-Mermin correlation, arXiv:1710.05825 [quant-ph]

About the Speaker

Dr S. Aravinda obtained his Master’s in Physics from NIT Surathkal in 2010, securing 1st rank. After working in Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, for 6 months, and teaching undergraduate physics at SVS college, Bantwal (near Mangaluru) for about an year, supported with an award of 5-year INSPIRE fellowship by Department of Science and Technology, he completed his PhD in 2016 on the areas of Theoretical Quantum Foundations, Quantum Information and Quantum Computing at Poornaprajna Institute of Scientific Research, Bangalore. Currently, he holds a position of post-doctoral fellow at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (Administered by Department of Atomic Energy), Chennai. His current research interests include Quantum Computation, Quantum Entanglement theory, Quantum Optics and Quantum Foundations.