Semiclassical Coulomb field

Abstract

The contribution of different modes of the Coulomb field to decoherence and to the dynamical breakdown of the time reversal invariance is calculated in the one-loop approximation for non-relativistic electron gas. The dominant contribution was found to come from the usual collective modes in the plasma, namely the zero-sound and the plasmon oscillations. The length scale of the quantum-classical transition is found to be close to the Thomas-Fermi screening length. It is argued that the extension of these modes to the whole Fock-space yield optimal pointer states.