Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians in decoherence and equilibrium theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a general framework for quantum decoherence using non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, proposing a new definition of the moving preferred basis and analyzing decoherence and relaxation times in a standard model.

Contribution

It provides a unified theoretical approach to decoherence, including a novel definition of the moving preferred basis applicable to open quantum systems.

Findings

Defined decoherence and relaxation times within the new framework

Compared results with existing models like Lee-Friedrichs

Demonstrated the applicability of the approach to a well-known open system

Abstract

There are many formalisms to describe quantum decoherence. However, many of them give a non general and ad hoc definition of "pointer basis" or "moving preferred basis", and this fact is a problem for the decoherence program. In this paper we will consider quantum systems under a general theoretical framework for decoherence and we will present a tentative definition of the moving preferred basis. These ideas are implemented in a well-known open system model. The obtained decoherence and the relaxation times are defined and compared with those of the literature for the Lee- Friedrichs model.