Predecoherence: before Decoherence and Collapse

TL;DR

Predecoherence is a strong, early-stage effect related to decoherence that occurs before measurement, potentially explaining wave function collapse through environmental interactions affecting quantum systems long before measurement.

Contribution

This paper introduces the concept of predecoherence, detailing its properties and proposing it as a mechanism for wave function collapse occurring prior to measurement.

Findings

Predecoherence generates and transports incoherence in quantum systems.

It can lead to a stationary level of decoherence effects.

A quantitative example supports the theory's plausibility.

Abstract

Predecoherence, as its name indicates, is the same physical effect as decoherence, originating in the same interactions with an environment, injecting also incoherence and breaking unitarity. But whereas decoherence acts immediately after a measurement, predecoherence is acting long before. It is also a very strong effect and its main properties are established in this paper, including generation, transport, damping, and stationary level. A mechanism for objectification, or wave function collapse, is also proposed as consisting in a perturbation by predecoherence of the intricacy between a measuring system and a measured one. The theory is made explicit on a special example and the quantitative results are found sensible.