English

Probability in decoherent histories

Quantum Physics 2007-05-23 v1

Abstract

The decoherent (consistent) histories formalism has been proposed as a means of eliminating measurements as a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. In this formalism, probabilities can be assigned to any description which satisfies a particular consistency condition. The formalism, however, admits incompatible descriptions which cannot be combined, unlike classical physics. This seems to leave an ambiguity in the choice of the description. I argue that this ambiguity is removed by considering the observer as a physical system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0302034,
  title  = {Probability in decoherent histories},
  author = {Todd A. Brun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0302034},
  year   = {2007}
}

Comments

17 pages, SPROCL LaTeX macros. To appear in proceedings of ``Foundations of Probability in Physics 2, Vaxjo, Sweden, June 2002.''