Related papers: Some Recent Developments in the Decoherent Histori…
In the decoherent histories approach to quantum theory, attention focuses on the conditions under which probabilities may be assigned to sets of quantum histories. A variety of conditions have been proposed, but the most important one is…
These lecture notes cover the important developments in histories approach to quantum mechanics with overall content and emphasis somewhat different from other reviews and books on the subject.The idea of Houtappel, Van Dam and Wigner of…
An idealized experiment estimating the spacetime topology is considered in both classical and quantum frameworks. The latter is described in terms of histories approach to quantum theory. A procedure creating combinatorial models of…
Reference frames are of special importance in physics. They are usually considered to be idealized entities. However, in most situations, e.g. in laboratories, physical processes are described within reference frames constituted by physical…
Within the decoherent histories formulation of quantum mechanics, we consider arbitrarily long histories constructed from a fixed projective partition of a finite-dimensional Hilbert space. We review some of the decoherence properties of…
The basic ingredients of the `consistent histories' approach to quantum theory are a space $\UP$ of `history propositions' and a space $\D$ of `decoherence functionals'. In this article we consider such history quantum theories in the case…
Understanding quantum theory has been a subject of debate from its birth. Many different formulations and interpretations have been proposed. Here we examine a recent novel formulation, namely the coevents formulation. It is a histories…
The origin of the phenomenological deterministic laws that approximately govern the quasiclassical domain of familiar experience is considered in the context of the quantum mechanics of closed systems such as the universe as a whole. We…
For a system consisting of a large collection of particles, a set of variables that will generally become effectively classical are the local densities (number, momentum, energy). That is, in the context of the decoherent histories approach…
Within the decoherent histories formulation of quantum mechanics, we investigate necessary conditions for decoherence of arbitrarily long histories. We prove that fine-grained histories of arbitrary length decohere for all classical initial…
Recent results on the decoherent histories quantization of simple cosmological models (minisuperspace models) are described. The most important issue is the construction, from the wave function, of a probability distribution answering…
Two recent studies have presented new information relevant to the transition from quantum behavior to classical behavior, and related this to parameters characterizing the universe as a whole. The present study based on a separate approach…
In the arrival time problem in quantum mechanics, a standard formula that frequently emerges as the probability for crossing the origin during a given time interval is the current integrated over that time interval. This is semiclassically…
We illustrate the crucial role played by decoherence (consistency of quantum histories) in extracting consistent quantum probabilities for alternative histories in quantum cosmology. Specifically, within a Wheeler-DeWitt quantization of a…
This paper explores the possibility that an exactly decoherent set of histories may be constructed from an approximately decoherent set by small distortions of the operators characterizing the histories. In particular, for the case of…
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…
The inherent difficulty in talking about quantum decoherence in the context of quantum cosmology is that decoherence requires subsystems, and cosmology is the study of the whole Universe. Consistent histories gave a possible answer to this…
This paper relates both to the metaphysics of probability and to the physics of time asymmetry. Using the formalism of decoherent histories, it investigates whether intuitions about intrinsic time directedness that are often associated with…
A pedagogical introduction is given to the quantum mechanics of closed systems, most generally the universe as a whole. Quantum mechanics aims at predicting the probabilities of alternative coarse-grained time histories of a closed system.…
In a quantum theory of gravity spacetime behaves classically when quantum probabilities are high for histories of geometry and field that are correlated in time by the Einstein equation. Probabilities follow from the quantum state. This…