Published July 2023 | Version Published
Journal Article Open

Emergent quantum mechanics at the boundary of a local classical lattice model

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology

Abstract

We formulate a model in which quantum mechanics emerges from classical mechanics. Given a local Hamiltonian H acting on n qubits, we define a local classical model with an additional spatial dimension whose boundary dynamics is approximately—but to arbitrary precision—described by Schrödinger's equation and H. The bulk consists of a lattice of classical bits that propagate towards the boundary through a circuit of stochastic matrices. The bits reaching the boundary are governed by a probability distribution whose deviation from the uniform distribution can be interpreted as the quantum-mechanical wave function. Bell nonlocality is achieved because information can move through the bulk much faster than the boundary speed of light. We analytically estimate how much the model deviates from quantum mechanics, and we validate these estimates using computer simulations.

Copyright and License

© 2023 American Physical Society.

Acknowledgement

We thank Jacques Pienaar, Scott Aaronson, Xie Chen, Jason Alicea, Monica Kang, and Stefan Prohazka for valuable discussions. K.S. was supported by the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics at Caltech; and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, Quantum Science Center. J.P. acknowledges funding provided by the Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center (PHY-1733907), the Simons Foundation It from Qubit Collaboration, the DOE QuantISED program (DE-SC0018407), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-19-1-0360).

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PhysRevA.108.012217.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

ISSN
2469-9934

Funding

National Science Foundation
PHY-1733907
Simons Foundation
United States Department of Energy
DE-SC0018407
United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research
FA9550-19-1-0360

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, Institute for Quantum Information and Matter