On the Definition of Decoherence
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
2009-10-22 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We examine the relationship between the decoherence of quantum-mechanical histories of a closed system (as discussed by Gell-Mann and Hartle) and environmentally-induced diagonalization of the density operator for an open system. We study a definition of decoherence which incorporates both of these ideas, and show that it leads to a consistent probabilistic interpretation of the reduced density operator.
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9301004,
title = {On the Definition of Decoherence},
author = {J. Finkelstein},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9301004},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
10 pages, LaTeX, SJSU/TP-93-10