Study Demonstrates Relativistic Locality in Quantum Field Theory and Many-Worlds Interpretation
A preprint forthcoming in an Oxford University Press volume argues that quantum field theory (without collapse) satisfies relativistic locality, and that this supports the fundamental locality of the many-worlds interpretation. The authors demonstrate locality by showing that field wave functional methods allow consistent state assignments to spacetime regions, while particle-based (Fock space) methods lead to non-locality or ambiguity. The work also addresses a standing objection to the Sebens-Carroll derivation of the Born Rule within the many-worlds framework.
Physicists Eugene Yew Siang Chua and collaborators have posted a preprint arguing that relativistic locality — the principle that events in a region are determined by their past light cone — can be rigorously extended from classical electromagnetism and the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations to quantum field theory without wavefunction collapse. The paper examines two approaches to assigning quantum states to spatial regions: one based on field wave functionals, which the authors favor and find to be local, and one based on particle wave functions in Fock space, which they find leads to either non-locality or an inability to assign well-defined regional states depending on the choice of creation operators. The authors conclude that the many-worlds (Everett) interpretation of quantum mechanics is local at the fundamental level. They further argue that this fundamental locality is compatible with both local and global accounts of how the non-fundamental branching of worlds occurs. This compatibility is used to counter a specific objection that has been raised against the Sebens-Carroll derivation of the Born Rule from self-locating uncertainty. The paper is scheduled to appear in the edited volume 'Local Quantum Mechanics: Everett, Many Worlds, and Reality,' to be published by Oxford University Press in 2026.
What's missing
The analysis is restricted to quantum field theory without collapse, leaving open how the locality results bear on collapse-based interpretations such as GRW or objective collapse theories.
What different sources said
- arXiv physicsCenter
Relativistic Locality from Electromagnetism to Quantum Field Theory
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