An Argument for Strong Positivity of the Decoherence Functional
Abstract
We give an argument for strong positivity of the decoherence functional as the correct, physical positivity condition in formulations of quantum theory based fundamentally on the path integral. We extend to infinite systems work by Boes and Navascues that shows that the set of strongly positive quantum systems is maximal amongst sets of systems that are closed under tensor product composition. We show further that the set of strongly positive quantum systems is the unique set that is maximal amongst sets that are closed under tensor product composition.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2011.06120,
title = {An Argument for Strong Positivity of the Decoherence Functional},
author = {Fay Dowker and Henry Wilkes},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.06120},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
22 pages. This version submitted for publication in a Special Topic Collection Celebrating Sir Roger Penrose's Nobel Prize for AVS Quantum Science (AQS), eds. Ivette Fuentes Guridi and Hendrik Ulbricht. Results and proofs same as in version 1. This version contains extra text in the introduction and at the end of the final discussion section