Decoherence in Quantum Mechanics

Abstract

We study decoherence in a simple quantum mechanical model using two approaches. Firstly, we follow the conventional approach to decoherence where one is interested in solving the reduced density matrix from the perturbative master equation. Secondly, we consider our novel correlator approach to decoherence where entropy is generated by neglecting observationally inaccessible correlators. We show that both methods can accurately predict decoherence time scales. However, the perturbative master equation generically suffers from instabilities which prevents us to reliably calculate the system's total entropy increase. We also discuss the relevance of the results in our quantum mechanical model for interacting field theories.

25 pages, 13 figures

References in corpus (4)

• Exact Master Equation and Quantum Decoherence of Two Coupled Harmonic Oscillators in a General Environment
• On the Decoherence of Primordial Fluctuations During Inflation
• Decoherence and entropy of primordial fluctuations II. The entropy budget
• The Scalar Field Kernel in Cosmological Spaces

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• On the Langevin description of nonequilibrium quantum fields
• In search of an observational quantum signature of the primordial perturbations in slow-roll and ultra slow-roll inflation
• Decoherence and Dynamical Entropy Generation in Quantum Field Theory
• A note on the semiclassicality of cosmological perturbations
• Symmetry breaking in de Sitter: a stochastic effective theory approach
• On decoherence of cosmological perturbations and stochastic inflation
• The Gaussian entropy of fermionic systems