English

Quantum jumps as decoherent histories

Quantum Physics 2009-10-30 v2 atom-ph General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

Quantum open systems are described in the Markovian limit by master equations in Lindblad form. I argue that common ``quantum jumps'' techniques, which solve the master equation by unraveling its evolution into stochastic trajectories in Hilbert space, correspond closely to a particular set of decoherent histories. This is illustrated by a simple model of a photon counting experiment.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/9606025,
  title  = {Quantum jumps as decoherent histories},
  author = {Todd A. Brun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/9606025},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

8 pages RevTeX 3.0, considerably revised and shortened. To appear in the 17 March issue of Phys. Rev. Letters