Alternative Decohering Histories in Quantum Mechanics

TL;DR

This paper advances the understanding of the emergence of classical reality in quantum mechanics by introducing the concept of strong decoherence and full sets of histories, aiming to better characterize the quasiclassical realm.

Contribution

It introduces the notion of strong decoherence and the concept of full sets of histories, providing a new framework for analyzing classicality in quantum cosmology.

Findings

Defined strong decoherence in quantum histories

Introduced full sets of strongly decohering histories

Proposed measures to quantify classicality

Abstract

We continue our efforts to understand, within the framework of the quantum mechanics of the universe as a whole, the quasiclassical realm of familiar experience as a feature emergent from the Hamiltonian of the elementary particles and the initial condition of the universe. Quantum mechanics assigns probabilities to exhaustive sets of alternative decoherent histories of the universe. We introduce and define the notion of strong decoherence. We replace the notion of maximal sets of alternative decohering histories by defining the more useful concept of "full" sets of alternative strongly decohering histories. These full sets fall into equivalence classes each of which is characterized by a basis in Hilbert space. Finally we describe our continuing efforts to find measures of classicality --- measures that could be applied to such full sets of alternative strongly decohering so as to characterize a quasiclassical realm.