Why do cosmological perturbations look classical to us?

TL;DR

This paper reviews how quantum primordial fluctuations during inflation transition to classical fluctuations, exploring the physics of decoherence and the observational indistinguishability between quantum and classical correlations.

Contribution

It provides a concise summary of the quantum-to-classical transition in cosmological perturbations, comparing closed and open system approaches including environment-induced decoherence.

Findings

Quantum and classical correlation functions are observationally indistinguishable in the closed system approach.

Decoherence via environment interaction explains the classical appearance of primordial fluctuations.

The entropy of fluctuations relates to the decoherence process with potential observational implications.

Abstract

According to the inflationary scenario of cosmology, all structure in the Universe can be traced back to primordial fluctuations during an accelerated (inflationary) phase of the very early Universe. A conceptual problem arises due to the fact that the primordial fluctuations are quantum, while the standard scenario of structure formation deals with classical fluctuations. In this essay we present a concise summary of the physics describing the quantum-to-classical transition. We first discuss the observational indistinguishability between classical and quantum correlation functions in the closed system approach (pragmatic view). We then present the open system approach with environment-induced decoherence. We finally discuss the question of the fluctuations' entropy for which, in principle, the concrete mechanism leading to decoherence possesses observational relevance.