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In Hegerfeldt, 1998 paper "Instantaneous Spreading and Einstein Causality in Quantum Theory" he states that,

"In nonrelativistic quantum mechanics the immediate spreading of wave functions over all space is a well known phenomenon".

In which he states that it is of no concern. What does he mean by the spreading of the wave function? and if so isn't this a causality violation in the non-relativistic QM.

Qmechanic
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  • Related: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/147553/226902 (non-hyperbolic PDE like the heat equation or Sch. Equation often allow for the spreading of signals with infinite speed). See also: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/213954/226902 – Quillo Jul 11 '23 at 13:06

1 Answers1

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In non relativistic QM the solutions of the (free) Schroedinger equation have the same properties as the solutions of the heat equation: suppose that at time $t=0$ the solution (wavefuncion) $\psi(t=0, \vec{x})$ vanishes outside a spatial bounded region. For every arbitrarily large $R>0$ and every arbitrarily small time $t>0$, there are points $\vec{x}$ with $||\vec{x}|| >R$ such that $\psi(t,\vec{x}) \neq 0$.

In principle this is not a problem since, in non-relativistic physics, there is no finite bound for propagation velocities.