Related papers: On the observation of decoherence with a movable m…
Recently it has been proposed to use parity as a measure of the mechanism behind decoherence or the transformation from quantum to classical. Here, we show that the proposed experiment is more feasible than previously thought, as even an…
We re-analyse the optomechanical interferometer experiment proposed by Marshall, Simon, Penrose and Bouwmeester with the help of a recently developed quantum-classical hybrid theory. This leads to an alternative evaluation of the mirror…
We analyze the notion of quantum coherence in an interference experiment. We let the phase shifts fluctuate according to a given statistical distribution and introduce a decoherence parameter, defined in terms of a generalized visibility of…
Decoherence in a quantum measurement is typically explained as an interaction with the environment that destroys coherence between the system's eigenstates, a phenomenon known as environment-induced superselection (einselection). In this…
On a scientific meta-level, it is discussed how an overall understanding of the physical universe can be built on the basis of well-proven theories, observations, and recent experiments. In the light of almost a century of struggle to make…
It has been proposed that measurement in quantum mechanics results from spontaneous breaking of a symmetry of the measuring apparatus and could be a unitary process that preserves coherence. Viewed in this manner, it is argued,…
A brief review of the attempts to define ``elements of reality'' in the framework of quantum theory is presented. It is noted that most definitions of elements of reality have in common the feature to be a definite outcome of some…
A multi-slit interference experiment, with which-way detectors, in the presence of environment induced decoherence, is theoretically analyzed. The effect of environment is modeled via a coupling to a bath of harmonic oscillators. Through an…
There exists a commonly accepted viewpoint that a movable mirror in an interferometer should cause interference breakdown due to a quantum jump to one of the two components of a photon mode. That effect goes back to Dirac. We argue that the…
The study of environmentally induced superselection and of the process of decoherence was originally motivated by the search for the emergence of classical behavior out of the quantum substrate, in the macroscopic limit. This limit, and…
Quantum mechanics and general relativity have been each successfully tested in numerous experiments. However, the regime where both theories are jointly required to explain physical phenomena remains untested by laboratory experiments, and…
The concept of ``elements of reality" is analyzed within the framework of quantum theory. It is shown that elements of reality fail to fulfill the product rule. This is the core of recent proofs of the impossibility of a Lorentz-invariant…
We show that it is possible to explain the quantum measurement process within the framework of quantum mechanics without any additional postulates. The key concept of the theory is decoherence, which appears as an inherent characteristic of…
The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument on quantum mechanics incompleteness is formulated in terms of elements of reality inferred from joint (as opposed to alternative) measurements, in two examples involving entangled states of three…
The double slit experiment provides a classic example of both interference and the effect of observation in quantum physics. When particles are sent individually through a pair of slits, a wave-like interference pattern develops, but no…
If a quantum experiment includes random processes, then the results of repeated measurements can appear consistent with irreversible decoherence even if the system's evolution prior to measurement was reversible and unitary. Two thought…
We propose a quantum optical version of Schr\"{o}dinger's famous gedanken experiment in which the state of a microscopic system (a cavity field) becomes entangled with and disentangled from the state of a massive object (a movable mirror).…
Current quantum orthodoxy claims that the statistical collapse of the wave-function arises from the interaction of the measuring instrument with its environment through the phenomenon known as environment induced decoherence. Here it is…
Intrinsic decoherence models (IDMs) have been proposed in order to solve the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. In this work, we assess the status of two of these models as physical theories by establishing the ultimate bounds on the…
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…