On conservation laws in quantum mechanics

Yakir Aharonov; Sandu Popescu; Daniel Rohrlich

doi:10.1073/pnas.1921529118

On conservation laws in quantum mechanics

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Jan 5;118(1):e1921529118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1921529118.

Authors

Yakir Aharonov^{1

2

3}, Sandu Popescu⁴, Daniel Rohrlich⁵

Affiliations

¹ School of Physics and Astronomy, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel; yakir@post.tau.ac.il S.Popescu@bristol.ac.uk.
² Institute for Quantum Studies, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866.
³ Department of Physics, Schmid College of Science and Technology, Chapman University, Orange, CA 92866.
⁴ H. H. Wills Physics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TL, United Kingdom; yakir@post.tau.ac.il S.Popescu@bristol.ac.uk.
⁵ Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beersheba 8410501, Israel.

Abstract

We raise fundamental questions about the very meaning of conservation laws in quantum mechanics, and we argue that the standard way of defining conservation laws, while perfectly valid as far as it goes, misses essential features of nature and has to be revisited and extended.

Keywords: conservation laws; fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics; quantum mechanics.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't