Related papers: The Meaning of Decoherence
Introduction to the theory of decoherence. Contents: 1. The phenomenon of decoherence: superpositions, superselection rules, decoherence by "measurements". 2. Observables as a derivable concept. 3. The measurement problem. 4. Density…
Endeavoring to formulate an exhaustive solution to the measurement problem in view of the theory of decoherence leads to a better understanding of the status of the collapse and of the emergence of classicality, thanks to a precise…
I give a pedagogical overview of decoherence and its role in providing a dynamical account of the quantum-to-classical transition. The formalism and concepts of decoherence theory are reviewed, followed by a survey of master equations and…
We discuss the possibility of making the {\it initial} definitions of mutually different (possibly interacting, or even entangled) systems in the context of decoherence theory. We point out relativity of the concept of elementary physical…
Decoherence is the process by which quantum systems interact and become correlated with their external environments; quantum trajectories are a powerful technique by which decohering systems can be resolved into stochastic evolutions,…
We discuss the notion of quantum mechanical coherence in its connection with time evolution and stationarity. The transition from coherence to decoherence is examined in terms of an equation for the time dependence of the density matrix. It…
Within the decoherence theory we investigate the physical background of the condition of the separability (diagonalizability in noncorrelated basis) of the interaction Hamiltonian of the composite system, "system plus environment". It…
A thought experiment is discussed to clarify the concept of decoherence. Superposition of states consisting of ground state of a single hydrogen atom and its excited state after a huge amount of time is discussed to show that the…
Decoherence is widely felt to have something to do with the quantum measurement problem, but getting clear on just what is made difficult by the fact that the "measurement problem", as traditionally presented in foundational and…
We discuss various definitions of decoherence and how it can be measured. We compare and contrast decoherence in quantum systems with an infinite number of eigenstates (such as the free particle and the oscillator) and spin systems. In the…
Inside quantum mechanics the problem of decoherence for an isolated, finite system is linked to a coarse-grained description of its dynamics.
Much of the discussion of decoherence has been in terms of a particle moving in one dimension that is placed in an initial superposition state (a Schr\"{o}dinger "cat" state) corresponding to two widely separated wave packets. Decoherence…
The theory of decoherent histories allows one to talk of the behavior of quantum systems in the absence of measurement. This paper generalizes the idea of decoherent histories to arbitrary open system operations and proposes experimentally…
After some historical remarks concerning Schroedinger's discovery of wave mechanics, we present a unified formalism for the mathematical description of classical and quantum-mechanical systems, utilizing elements of the theory of operator…
We consider the description of quantum noise within the framework of the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to a composite system environment setting. Averaging over the environmental degrees of freedom leads to…
This paper studies the energy decoherence of an interacting quantum system. It first reviews the experiments that motivated the postulates of quantum mechanics. It then discusses a decoherence that occurs dynamically in a closed system.…
A wide-ranging theory of decoherence is derived from the quantum theory of irreversible processes, with specific results having for their main limitation the assumption of an exact pointer basis.
We study decoherence induced by a dynamic environment undergoing a quantum phase transition. Environment's susceptibility to perturbations - and, consequently, efficiency of decoherence - is amplified near a critical point. Over and above…
Macroscopic behavior such as the lack of interference patterns has been attributed to "decoherence", a word with several possible definitions such as (1) the loss of off-diagonal density matrix elements, (2) the flow of information to the…
Different structures of master-equation used for the description of decoherence of a microsystem interacting through collisions with a surrounding environment are considered and compared. These results are connected to the general…