Environmental Information Saturation and Measurement-Induced Stable Localization A Testable Phenomenological Model Based on Effective Mass and Open-System Dynamics

Abstract

AbstractThis study treats quantum measurement not as a process that must produce an instantaneous ontological collapse, but as an open-system process that spatially narrows a specified measurement record and stabilizes it against subsequent spreading. The proposed phenomenological model combines system-environment mutual information, the effective number of distinguishable record modes, and the independently calibrated effective collective mass of the pointer coordinate in a single localization-rate ansatz. Conditional continuous measurement reduces the position variance while producing momentum backaction; a large effective mass slows kinetic dispersion; and confinement and damping permit a finite stationary width. The model distinguishes screen detection from which-path recording and produces no additional decoherence in the zero-which-path-information limit. For Gaussian states, a closed covariance system, stationary width, energy balance, visibility law, and a post-measurement free-expansion test are provided. The claim is not an ontological solution to the collapse problem, but a new, operational, and falsifiable scaling proposal for the formation of stable spatial records. In addition, the ansatz is matched to the position-diffusion coefficient obtained from a linear system-environment interaction in the Born-Markov limit, and a quantitative record-information test is identified that distinguishes the proposal from GRW, CSL, Diosi-Penrose, and standard continuous-measurement scalings.