Inconsistency between alternative approaches to Quantum Decoherence in special systems

Abstract

We study the decoherence properties of a certain class of Markovian quantum open systems from both the Decohering Histories and Environment Induced Superselection paradigms. The class studied includes many familiar quantum optical cases. For this class, we show that there always exists a basis which leads to {\em exactly} consistent histories for any coarse graining {\em irrespective} of the initial conditions. The magnitude of the off--diagonal elements of the reduced density matrix $\rho$ in this basis however, depends on the initial conditions. Necessary requirements for classicality as advanced by the two paradigms are thus in direct conflict in these systems.