Study Demonstrates Relativistic Locality in Quantum Field Theory and Many-Worlds Interpretation
A new physics paper argues that quantum field theory without collapse satisfies relativistic locality—meaning events in one region determine outcomes in causally connected regions—by analyzing how reduced density matrices can be assigned to spatial regions. The analysis extends classical results from electromagnetism and the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations to quantum field theory, using field wave functionals as the preferred method. This finding supports the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics as fundamentally local, addressing a longstanding objection to deriving the Born Rule from self-locating uncertainty.
Researchers have submitted a preprint to arXiv demonstrating that quantum field theory without wave function collapse can satisfy relativistic locality—a principle stating that what occurs within a region determines what will happen in the contracting light-cone with that region as its base. The authors show this standard, already established for electromagnetism and the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations, can be applied to quantum field theory by carefully assigning reduced density matrix states to spatial regions. Two methods are examined: one based on field wave functionals (which supports locality) and another based on particle wave functions in Fock space (which leads to either non-locality or inability to assign states, depending on creation operator choice). The authors conclude that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics is local at the fundamental level, and argue this fundamental locality is compatible with both local and global accounts of world branching, thereby countering previous objections to the Sebens-Carroll derivation of the Born Rule from self-locating uncertainty.
What's missing
The paper does not discuss potential experimental tests or observational consequences of these theoretical findings, nor does it address how this framework relates to other interpretations of quantum mechanics (Copenhagen, pilot-wave theory, objective collapse models) beyond many-worlds.
What different sources said
- arXiv physicsCenter
Relativistic Locality from Electromagnetism to Quantum Field Theory
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