Related papers: The Meaning of Decoherence
The concept of decoherence is defined, and discussed in a historical context. This is illustrated by some of its essential consequences which may be relevant for the interpretation of quantum theory. Various aspects of the formalism are…
A generalized formal framework for decoherence, that can be used both in open and closed quantum systems, is sketched. In this context, the relationship between the decoherence of a closed system and the decoherence of its subsystems is…
We give a short, critical review of the issue of decoherence. We establish the most general framework in which decoherence can be discussed, how it can be quantified and how it can be measured. We focus on environment induced decoherence…
With a choice of boundary conditions for solutions of the Schr\"odinger equation, state vectors and density operators even for closed systems evolve asymmetrically in time. For open systems, standard quantum mechanics consequently predicts…
We examine the relationship between the decoherence of quantum-mechanical histories of a closed system (as discussed by Gell-Mann and Hartle) and environmentally-induced diagonalization of the density operator for an open system. We study a…
Decoherence is the phenomenon of non-unitary dynamics that arises as a consequence of coupling between a system and its environment. It has important harmful implications for quantum information processing, and various solutions to the…
A reduction mechanism resulting directly from the basic principles of quantum mechanics is proposed, inseparably from decoherence. A rather consistent theory of this effect is given and the next problems it raises are indicated.
A short critical review of the concept of decoherence, its consequences, and its possible implications for the interpretation of quantum theory is given.
The aim of this paper is to review a new perspective about decoherence, according to which formalisms originally devised to deal just with closed or open systems can be subsumed under a closed-system approach that generalizes the…
Quantum decoherence plays a pivotal role in the dynamical description of the quantum-to-classical transition and is the main impediment to the realization of devices for quantum information processing. This paper gives an overview of the…
In this contribution I give a brief introduction to the essential concepts and mechanisms of decoherence by the environment. The emphasis will be not so much on technical details but rather on conceptual issues and the impact on the…
The decoherence mechanism signals the limits beyond which the system dynamics approaches the classical behavior. We show that in some cases decoherence may also signal the limits beyond which the system dynamics has to be described by…
It has been claimed that decoherence of open quantum systems explains the tendency of macroscopic systems to exhibit quasiclassical behavior. We show that quasiclassicality is in fact an unremarkable property, characterizing generic…
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…
Quantum decoherence refers to the phenomenon when the interaction of a quantum system with its environment results in the degradation of quantum coherence. Decoherence is considered to be the most popular mechanism responsible for the…
The possibility of consistency between the basic quantum principles of quantum mechanics and wave function collapse is reexamined. A specific interpretation of environment is proposed for this aim and applied to decoherence. When the…
Environment-induced decoherence and superselection have been a subject of intensive research over the past two decades, yet their implications for the foundational problems of quantum mechanics, most notably the quantum measurement problem,…
A simplified Heisenberg spin model is studied in order to examine the idea of decoherence in closed quantum systems. For this purpose, we present a quantifiable definition to quantum coherence $\Xi$, and discuss in some detail a general…
A direct classical analog of quantum decoherence is introduced. Similarities and differences between decoherence dynamics examined quantum mechanically and classically are exposed via a second-order perturbative treatment and via a strong…
We present a discussion of the fundamental loss of unitarity that appears in quantum mechanics due to the use of a physical apparatus to measure time. This induces a decoherence effect that is independent of any interaction with the…