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Quantum Decoherence in a Four-Dimensional Black Hole Background

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2019-08-17 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory Quantum Physics

Abstract

We display a logarithmic divergence in the density matrix of a scalar field in the presence of an Einstein-Yang-Mills black hole in four dimensions. This divergence is related to a previously-found logarithmic divergence in the entropy of the scalar field, which cannot be absorbed into a renormalization of the Hawking-Bekenstein entropy of the black hole. As the latter decays, the logarithmic divergence induces a non-commutator term \ndδHρ\nd{\delta H}\rho in the quantum Liouville equation for the density matrix ρ\rho of the scalar field, leading to quantum decoherence. The order of magnitude of \ndδH\nd{\delta H} is μ2/MP\mu^2/M_P, where μ\mu is the mass of the scalar particle.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.gr-qc/9602011,
  title  = {Quantum Decoherence in a Four-Dimensional Black Hole Background},
  author = {John Ellis and N. E. Mavromatos and D. V. Nanopoulos and E. Winstanley},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/9602011},
  year   = {2019}
}

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13-pages LATEX