This PhD course will focus on the phenomenon of entanglement and non-locality in quantum mechanics, with the aim of deepening the understanding of their philosophical implications.
University of Oslo, 11-12 September 2023
Course description
Quantum mechanics is, alongside the general theory of relativity, currently our best theory to describe physical reality. Yet, despite being debated among physicists and philosophers for almost 100 years, the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics remain mysterious. Some of its implications are extremely counter-intuitive, to the point of seeming paradoxical.
This course will center around one such “paradoxical” aspect: The phenomenon of entanglement and related violation of the Bell inequalities, which is often taken to imply that the world must be non-local. The topic has received increasingly more research interest over the last decade, particularly within the field of causal modelling, where it has motivated the development of quantum causal models. It garnered even more attention with the Nobel prize in physics 2022 being awarded to Aspect, Clauser and Zeilinger for their experimental verification of the violation of the Bell inequalities and demonstration of other entanglement-related phenomena.
The aim of the course is to introduce the participants to the current state-of-the-art regarding entanglement and non-locality in quantum mechanics, and to contribute to the ongoing philosophical discussion. The course will feature talks and discussion groups on topics including non-locality and relativity, causal models for Bell experiments, superdeterminism and retrocausation, entanglement and quantum ontology, and temporal non-locality.
The course will be organized as a two-day workshop, including a combination of lectures, commentaries, and discussion groups. The workshop will be introduced with an opening lecture giving an overview of the current state-of-the-art, followed by discussion groups and presentations by the participants. On the second day, the participants will get an introduction to the experimental methods used to test Bell inequality violations.
For more information, including how to apply, please visit https://www.hf.uio.no/ifikk/english/research/news-and-events/events/phd/2023/non-locality-in-quantum-mechanics.html
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