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The path integral is not typically utilized for analyzing entanglement experiments, in part because there is no standard toolbox for converting an arbitrary experiment into a form allowing a simple sum-over-history calculation. After completing the last portion of this toolbox (a technique for implementing multi-particle measurements in an entangled basis), some interesting 4- and 6-particle experiments are analyzed with this alternate technique. While the joint probabilities of measurement outcomes are always equivalent to conventional quantum mechanics, differences in the calculations motivate a number of foundational insights, concerning nonlocality, retrocausality, and the objectivity of entanglement itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the path-integral formalism is known to be equivalent to conventional quantum mechanics, it is not generally obvious how to implement path-based calculations for multi-qubit entangled states. Whether one takes the formal view of entangled states as entities in a high-dimensional Hilbert space, or the intuitive view of these states as a connection between distant spatial configurations, it may not even be obvious that a path-based calculation can be achieved using only paths in ordinary space and time. Previous work has shown how to do this for certain special states; this paper extends those results to all pure two-qubit states, where each qubit can be measured in an arbitrary basis. Certain three-qubit states are also developed, and path integrals again reproduce the usual correlations. These results should allow for a substantial amount of conventional quantum analysis to be translated over into a path-integral perspective, simplifying certain calculations, and more generally informing research in quantum foundations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rate of an atomic clock is influenced simultaneously by gravitational acceleration and by velocity. Discrete coordinates are necessary to register an acceleration and continuous coordinates for a velocity. Wave functions are only continuous so they lack the minimum number of independent coordinates/degrees of freedom necessary to describe atomic structure. The unobserved coordinates are restored in a relativistically correct theory proposed here; discrete coordinates are assigned to emission and absorption events on electron shells, and continuous coordinates are assigned to electron transitions between events. Instead of orbitals in a planetary model of the atom, there are surfaces in an electron shell model. Entanglement is explained by locally defined field boundaries, and wave function collapse is due to the recovery of discrete coordinates required by the equivalence principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis of the path integral approach to quantum theory motivates the hypothesis that two experiments with the same classical action should have dual ontological descriptions. If correct, this hypothesis would not only constrain realistic interpretations of quantum theory, but would also act as a constructive principle, allowing any realistic model of one experiment to generate a corresponding model for its action-dual. Two pairs of action-dual experiments are presented, including one experiment that violates the Bell inequality and yet is action-dual to a single particle. The implications generally support retrodictive and retrocausal interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]