The Critical Mass Interpretation (CM) is in some respects a combination of the Pilot Wave (Bohmian Mechanics) Interpretation and the Cellular Automaton Interpretation. The pilot wave is created by the source of the particles. It is also related to the dark and light photons hypothesis, except that the dark photons can’t be seen because they are too “small” to be detected. It is related to the Cellular Automaton Interpretations since it is deterministic with particles and sub-particles interfering with each other. [mass here referring to the number of objects as in a mass of people]
The main concepts of the Critical Mass Interpretation are
The source creates sub-particles
Only when there is a critical mass of sub-particles in a single location at a single instance in time is a particle created
Sub-particles are much "smaller" that particles and therefore can't (yet) be measured
The abundance of sub-particles is substantially higher than the abundance of particles and therefore have an overwhelming influence on the behavior of particles
Particles and sub-particles interact to form the "pilot wave"
Some properties of the theory
In the Critical Mass interpretation, as with the Pilot Wave Interpretation, the wave function does not collapse upon measurement. Instead, the particle simply exists at a particular location and the "wave function" continues to exist.
It is not susceptible to the Schrödinger's cat paradox since the particle is only in one, perhaps unknown, state at any instance in time
The Critical Mass Interpretation has realism as it is independent of the observer
The Critical Mass Interpretation is deterministic.
It is a hidden-variable theory in the sense that the positions of the particles and sub-particles can be considered hidden variables.
Unlike the Pilot Wave Interpretation, the "wave function" is influenced by the particle, but since the abundance of sub-particles is subtantially greater the influence is infinitesimal.
One issue to resolve is entanglement. Knowing the state of one particle of a pair because you measured the other one, is simply assignment at birth, and should not contradict the Critical Mass Interpretation. It is the unreconcilable probabilities as explained here that is problematic. The Cellular Automaton Interpretations uses superdeterminism and the observers lack of ‘free will’ to explain entanglement, but this is clearly unsatisfactory.