Arrival Time and Bohmian Mechanics: It Is the Theory Which Decides What We Can Measure

Abstract

In this work, we analyze recent proposals by Das and Dürr (DD) to measure the arrival time distributions of quantum particles within the framework of de Broglie Bohm theory (or Bohmian mechanics). We also analyze the criticisms made by Goldstein Tumulka and Zanghì (GTZ) of these same proposals, and show that each protagonist is both right and wrong. In detail, we show that DD’s predictions are indeed measurable in principle, but that they will not lead to violations of the no-signalling theorem used in Bell’s theorem, in contradiction with some of Das and Maudlin’s hopes.

Keywords

• arrival time
• quantum detection theory
• Bohmian mechanics