Professor of Physics Emeritus Phil Pearle co-authored a paper that was recently published online by the European Physics Journal. Titled “Discussions about the landscape of possibilities for treatments of cosmic inflation involving continuous spontaneous localization models,” the paper was written with Daniel Sudarsky of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Gabriel Bengochea of Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Gabriel Leon of Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
Pearle’s theory of dynamical wave function collapse (CSL theory, or continuous spontaneous localization theory) presents a modification of standard quantum theory. He said that instead of describing just the probabilities of what happens, as is done by standard quantum theory, CSL presents a modified quantum theory that describes what actually happens.
In this paper, Pearle and his co-authors discuss various approaches to how to incorporate CSL in a theory of the beginning of the universe.
