Related papers: On the Consistent Effect Histories Approach to Qua…
Interpretational questions that arise in the Consistent Histories formulation of quantum mechanics are illustrated by the familiar example of a beam passing through multiple slits.
Recently, Griffiths presented a generalization of the consistent history approach to quantum mechanics. I can easily construct all possible complete families satisfying Griffiths' "noninterference conditions". Since only trivial families…
We introduce a condition for the strong decoherence of a set of alternative histories of a closed quantum-mechanical system such as the universe. The condition applies, for a pure initial state, to sets of homogeneous histories that are…
The interpretations of a particular quantum gedanken experiment provided by Bohmian mechanics and consistent histories are shown to contradict each other, both in the absence and in the presence of a measuring device. The consistent history…
The landscape of causal relations that can hold among a set of systems in quantum theory is richer than in classical physics. In particular, a pair of time-ordered systems can be related as cause and effect or as the effects of a common…
We introduce a new notion of consistency for 2-events quantum histories, based on the concept of mirror projection. Contrary to all notions of consistency so far introduced, our consistency, named self-decoherence, is an individual…
A resolution of the quantum measurement problem(s) using the consistent histories interpretation yields in a rather natural way a restriction on what an observer can know about a quantum system, one that is also consistent with some results…
We reconsider the Decoherent Histories approach to Quantum Mechanics and we analyze some problems related to its interpretation which, according to us, have not been adequately clarified by its proponents. We put forward some assumptions…
A system of quantum reasoning for a closed system is developed by treating non-relativistic quantum mechanics as a stochastic theory. The sample space corresponds to a decomposition, as a sum of orthogonal projectors, of the identity…
There are good motivations for considering some type of quantum histories formalism. Several possible formalisms are known, defined by different definitions of event and by different selection criteria for sets of histories. These…
Within ordinary ---unitary--- quantum mechanics there exist global protocols that allow to verify that no definite event ---an outcome to which a probability can be associated--- occurs. Instead, states that start in a coherent…
In the consistent histories formulation of quantum theory, the probabilistic predictions and retrodictions made from observed data depend on the choice of a consistent set. We show that this freedom allows the formalism to retrodict…
In the context of the decoherent histories approach to quantum theory, it is shown that a class of macroscopic configurations consisting of histories of local densities (number, momentum, energy) exhibit negligible interference. This…
Feynman's sum-over-histories formulation of quantum mechanics has been considered a useful calculational tool in which virtual Feynman histories entering into a coherent quantum superposition cannot be individually measured. Here we show…
Gell-Mann and Hartle have proposed a significant generalisation of quantum theory with a scheme whose basic ingredients are `histories' and decoherence functionals. Within this scheme it is natural to identify the space $\UP$ of…
We give an explicit, rigorous framework for calculating quantum probabilities in a model theory of quantum gravity. Specifically, we construct the decoherence functional for the Wheeler-DeWitt quantization of a flat…
We demonstrate a close connection between the decoherent histories (DH) approach to quantum mechanics and the quantum state diffusion (QSD) picture, for open quantum systems described by a master equation of Lindblad form. The (physically…
Symmetries are defined in histories-based generalized quantum mechanics paying special attention to the class of history theories admitting quasitemporal structure (a generalization of the concept of `temporal sequences' of `events' using…
We sketch a quantum mechanical framework for the universe as a whole. Within that framework we propose a program for describing the ultimate origin in quantum cosmology of the quasiclassical domain of familiar experience and for…
It is convenient to describe a quantum system at all times by means of a "history operator" $C$, encoding measurements and unitary time evolution between measurements. These operators naturally arise when computing the probability of…