Skip to content

Decoherence in the Dirac equation

David A. Meyer

quant-pharXiv:quant-ph/9804023

Abstract

A Dirac particle is represented by a unitarily evolving state vector in a Hilbert space which factors as Hspin Hposition. Motivated by the similarity to simple models of decoherence consisting of a two state system coupled to an environment, we investigate the occurence of decoherence in the Dirac equation upon tracing over position. We conclude that the physics of this mathematically exact model for decoherence is closely related to Zitterbewegung.

Create a lesson