Related papers: Frequently Asked Questions about Decoherence

The interaction of a particle with vacuum fluctuations--which theoretically exist even in the complete absence of matter--can lead to observable irreversible decoherence if it were possible to switch on and off the particle charge suddenly.…

A central feature in the Copenhagen interpretation is the use of classical concepts from the outset. Modern developments show, however, that the emergence of classical properties can be understood within the framework of quantum theory…

This paper discusses the relation between the decoherent histories approach to quantum mechanics that is based on coarse-grained decoherent histories of a closed system, and the approximate quantum mechanics of measured subsystems, as in…

In the pursuit of speculative new particles, forces, and dimensions with vanishingly small influence on normal matter, understanding the ultimate physical limits of experimental sensitivity is essential. Here, I show that quantum…

Quantum decoherence, which appears when a system interacts with its environment in an irreversible way, plays a fundamental role in the description of quantum-to-classical transitions and has been successfully applied in some important…

This work proposes a series of quantum experiments that can, at least in principle, allow for examining microscopic mechanisms associated with decoherence. These experiments can be interpreted as a quantum-mechanical version of…

Unitarity is a pillar of quantum theory. Nevertheless, it is also a source of several of its conceptual problems. We note that in a world where measurements are relational, as is the case in gravitation, quantum mechanics exhibits a…

In this Thesis we study the quantum to classical transition process in the context of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. We shall analyze the effects that general environments, namely ohmic and non-ohmic, at zero and high…

A consistent description of interactions between classical and quantum systems is relevant to quantum measurement theory, and to calculations in quantum chemistry and quantum gravity. A solution is offered here to this longstanding problem,…

We study the onset of a classical order parameter after a second-order phase transition in quantum field theory. We consider a quantum scalar field theory in which the system-field (long-wavelength modes), interacts with its environment,…

Our account of the problem of the classical limit of quantum mechanics involves two elements. The first one is self-induced decoherence, conceived as a process that depends on the own dynamics of a closed quantum system governed by a…

The total correlations in a bipartite quantum system are measured by the quantum mutual information $\mathcal{I}$, which consists of quantum discord and classical correlation. However, recent results in quantum information shows that…

We show that the modern quantum mechanics, and particularly the theory of decoherence, allows formulating a sort of a physical metatheory of consciousness. Particularly, the analysis of the necessary conditions for the occurrence of…

The consistent histories formalism can be used to describe histories comprised of events across many systems, times, and places, plausibly rich enough to describe our experiences of the classical world; however, many consistent history sets…

We review a number of issues in foundations of quantum theory and quantum cosmology including, in particular, the problem of the preferred basis in the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, the relation between this…

This paper discusses work developed in recent years, in the domain of quantum optics, which has led to a better understanding of the classical limit of quantum mechanics. New techniques have been proposed, and experimentally demonstrated,…

We discuss effects of loss of coherence in low energy quantum systems caused by or related to gravitation, referred to as gravitational decoherence. These effects, resulting from random metric fluctuations, for instance, promise to be…

We found that in contrast with the common premise, a measurement on the environment of an open quantum system can {\em reduce} its decoherence rate. We demonstrate it by studying an example of indirect qubit's measurement, where the…

A general theoretical framework for decoherence is proposed, which encompasses formalisms originally devised to deal just with open or with closed systems. The conditions for decoherence are clearly stated and the relaxation and decoherence…

It is commonly believed that decoherence arises as a result of the entangling interaction between a quantum system and its environment, as a consequence of which the environment effectively measures the system, thus washing away its quantum…