The quantum-to-classical transition and decoherence

TL;DR

This paper provides a comprehensive overview of decoherence, explaining its role in the quantum-to-classical transition, reviewing formalism, models, mitigation techniques, and experimental studies.

Contribution

It offers a pedagogical synthesis of decoherence theory, including formalism, models, mitigation strategies, and experimental insights, enhancing understanding of quantum-classical transition.

Findings

Decoherence explains the emergence of classicality from quantum systems.

Master equations and models describe decoherence dynamics.

Experimental investigations validate theoretical decoherence models.

Abstract

I give a pedagogical overview of decoherence and its role in providing a dynamical account of the quantum-to-classical transition. The formalism and concepts of decoherence theory are reviewed, followed by a survey of master equations and decoherence models. I also discuss methods for mitigating decoherence in quantum information processing and describe selected experimental investigations of decoherence processes.