General Theorems on Decoherence in the Thermodynamic Limit

Abstract

We extend the results on decoherence in the thermodynamic limit [M. Frasca, Phys. Lett. A {\bf 283}, 271 (2001)] to general Hamiltonians. It is shown that N independent particles, initially properly prepared, have a set of observables behaving classically in the thermodynamic limit. This particular set of observables is then coupled to a quantum system that in this way decoheres so to have the density matrix in a mixed form. This gives a proof of the generality of this effect.

8 pages, no figures. Version accepted by Physics Letters A

References in corpus (2)

• Do we really understand quantum mechanics?
• Dephasing by two-level systems at zero temperature by unitary evolution

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