Quasiclassical Realms in a Quantum Universe

Abstract

In this universe, governed fundamentally by quantum mechanical laws, characterized by indeterminism and distributed probabilities, classical deterministic laws are applicable over a wide range of time, place, and scale. We review the origin of these laws in the context of the quantum mechanics of closed systems, most generally, the universe as a whole. There probabilities are predicted for members of decoherent sets of alternative histories of the universe, ie ones for which the interference between pairs in the set is negligible as measured by a decoherence functional. An expansion of the decoherence functional in the separation between histories allows the form of the deterministic equations of motion to be derived for suitable coarse grainings of a class of non-relativistic systems, including ones with general non-linear interactions. More coarse graining is needed to achieve classical predictability than naive arguments based on the uncertainty principle would suggest. Coarse graining is needed for decoherence, and coarse graining beyond that for the inertia necessary to resist the noise that mechanisms of decoherence produce. Sets of histories governed largely by deterministic laws constitute the quasiclassical realm of everyday experience which is an emergent feature of the closed system's initial condition and Hamiltonian. We analyse the sensitivity of the existence of a quasiclassical realm to the particular form of the initial condition. We find that almost any initial condition will exhibit a quasiclassical realm of some sort, but only a small fraction of the total number of possible initial states could reproduce the everyday quasiclassical realm of our universe. (Talk given at the Lanczos Centenary Conference, North Carolina State University, December 15, 1993.)