Unversality of decoherence in the macroworld

Abstract

We consider environment induced decoherence of quantum superpositions to mixtures in the limit in which that process is much faster than any competing one generated by the Hamiltonian $H_{\rm sys}$ of the isolated system. This interaction dominated decoherence limit has previously not found much attention even though it is of importance for the emergence of classical behavior in the macroworld, since it will always be the relevant regime for large enough separations between superposed wave packets. The usual golden-rule treatment then does not apply but we can employ a short-time expansion for the free motion while keeping the interaction $H_{\rm int}$ in full. We thus reveal decoherence as a universal short-time phenomenon largely independent of the character of the system as well as the bath. Simple analytical expressions for the decoherence time scales are obtained in the limit in which decoherence is even faster than any timescale emerging from the reservoir Hamiltonian $H_{\rm res}$.