Quantum field theory and dense measurement

D. Bar

Published 2001-12-12, updated 2002-05-14Version 2

We show, using quantum field theory, that performing a large number of identical repetitions of the same measurement does not only preserve the initial state of the wave function (the Zeno effect), but also produces additional physical effects. We first demonstrate that a Zeno type effect can emerges also in the framework of quantum field theory, that is, as a quantum field phenomenon. We also derive a Zeno type effect from quantum field theory for the general case in which the initial and final states are different. The basic physical entities dealt with in this work are not the conventional once-perfomed physical processes, but their $n$ times repetition where $n$ tends to infinity. We show that the presence of these repetitions entails the presence of additional excited state energies, and the absence of them entails the absence of these excited energies. We also show that in the presence of these repetitions the Schroedinger equation may be derived from the functional generalization of quantum mechanics.