Facing the interpretive challenges of quantum mechanics from an ontolgy of properties

OLIMPIA LOMBARDI

Buenos Aires

Congreso; V Conference on Quantum Foundations: Ontological Problems 80 Years after EPR; 2015

Foundational Questions Institute y Unversidad Nacional de La Plata

In previous papers we have proposed the modal-Hamiltonian interpretation of quantum mechanics, a new member of the ?modal family?, according to which the Hamiltonian of the system plays a determining role in the selection of the preferred context of definite-valued observables. The interpretation was applied to several well-known physical situations (free particle with spin, harmonic oscillator, free hydrogen atom, Zeeman effect, fine structure, the Born-Oppenheimer approximation), leading to results consistent with empirical evidence. Moreover, it proved to be able to supply an account of the measurement problem, both in its ideal and its non-ideal versions, and to supply a criterion to distinguish between reliable and non-reliable non-ideal measurements. Furthermore, it was expressed under a group-invariant form, its links with quantum decoherence were studied, and its extrapolation to quantum field theory was considered.In the present talk I will not focus on these technical interpretive matters, but I will consider the ontological picture supplied by the modal-Hamiltonian interpretation: a modal ontology of of type-properties, whose modal nature consists in the fact that they only determine the possible case-properties of a quantum system, but not its actual case-properties. From this perspective, a quantum system is conceived as a bundle of type-properties. The purpose of this work is to argue that this modal ontology of properties offers a unified solution to the three main ontological problems of quantum mechanics: contextuality, indistinguishability and non-separability.