Related papers: Consistent histories and relativistic invariance i…
The decoherent (consistent) histories formalism has been proposed as a means of eliminating measurements as a fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. In this formalism, probabilities can be assigned to any description which satisfies a…
Decoherent histories quantum theory is reformulated with the assumption that there is one "real" fine-grained history, specified in a preferred complete set of sum-over-histories variables. This real history is described by embedding it in…
The consistent histories approach to quantum mechanics is traditionally based on linearly ordered sequences of events. We extend the histories formalism to sets of events whose causal ordering is described by directed acyclic graphs. The…
We present a formulation of the decoherent (or consistent) histories quantum theory of closed systems starting with records of what histories happen. Alternative routes to a formulation of quantum theory like this one can be useful both for…
The quantum mechanics of closed systems such as the universe is formulated using an extension of familiar probability theory that incorporates negative probabilities. Probabilities must be positive for sets of alternative histories that are…
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…
In this work a generalization of the consistent histories approach to quantum mechanics is presented. We first critically review the consistent histories approach to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics in a mathematically rigorous way and…
Traditional interpretations of quantum theory in terms of wave function collapse are particularly unappealing when considering the universe as a whole, where there is no clean separation between classical observer and quantum system and…
The Consistent Histories (CH) formalism aims at a quantum mechanical framework which could be applied even to the universe as a whole. CH stresses the importance of histories for quantum mechanics, as opposed to measurements, and maintains…
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…
Modal interpretations have the ambition to construe quantum mechanics as an objective, man-independent description of physical reality. Their second leading idea is probabilism: quantum mechanics does not completely fix physical reality but…
We review the application of the consistent (or decoherent) histories formulation of quantum theory to canonical loop quantum cosmology. Conventional quantum theory relies crucially on "measurements" to convert unrealized quantum…
An example is presented when decoherence and quantum interference gives rise to narrow eigenstates (in coordinate representation) for the reduced density matrix of macroscopic quantum systems. On the basis of modal interpretations this…
Based on the notion of time translation, we develop a formalism to deal with the logic of quantum properties at different times. In our formalism it is possible to enlarge the usual notion of context to include composed properties involving…
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…
We develop an algebraic frame for the simultaneous treatment of actual and possible properties of quantum systems. We show that, in spite of the fact that the language is enriched with the addition of a modal operator to the orthomodular…
The theory of decoherent histories is checked for the requirement of statistical independence of subsystems. Strikingly, this is satisfied only when the decoherence functional is diagonal in both its real a n d imaginary parts. In…
A formulation of the consistent histories approach to quantum mechanics in terms of generalized observables (POV measures) and effect operators is provided. The usual notion of `history' is generalized to the notion of `effect history'. The…
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.…
We analyse and develop the recent suggestion that a temporal form of quantum logic provides the natural mathematical framework within which to discuss the proposal by Gell-Mann and Hartle for a generalised form of quantum theory based on…