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On the Definition of Decoherence

J. Finkelstein

gr-qcarXiv:gr-qc/9301004

Abstract

We examine the relationship between the decoherence of quantum-mechanical histories of a closed system (as discussed by Gell-Mann and Hartle) and environmentally-induced diagonalization of the density operator for an open system. We study a definition of decoherence which incorporates both of these ideas, and show that it leads to a consistent probabilistic interpretation of the reduced density operator.

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