Max J. Davies

Profile

I am a PhD student in the Quantum Group here at Leeds. I studied for my MPhys and BSc at Leeds too.

• MPhys Dissertation: “The Emergence of Mass in Quantum Mechanics in Configuration Space”.

Research interests

My primary research interest is in the foundations of quantum mechanics. This includes quantum-classical consistency, quantisation methods, aspects of quantum field theories, and causality/locality in quantum theory.

Currently, we are exploring the shortcomings of canonical quantisation, persuing instead a physically motivated quantisation procedure for mechanical particles (Bennett et al., Bukhari et al.). In the resulting formulation of quantum mechanics, classical emergence becomes a localisation problem rather than a decoherence effect. At the moment, we are using this framework to explore systems where the dynamics of single particles as predicted by quantum theory, deviate greatly from the classical predictions, with the hope of better understanding the quantum-classical transition.

Beyond this, my wider research interests include quantum dynamics, quantum relativity, gravity and the role of reference frames in quantum mechanics. I also have an interest in the philosophical aspects of quantum mechanics - particularly in the fundamental ontology of quantum theory and the measurement problem.

Qualifications

• MPhys (integrated) Theoretical Physics, University of Leeds
• BSc Theoretical Physics, University of Leeds.

Research groups and institutes

• Theoretical Physics