Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2003)
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Interference phenomena are a well-known and crucial feature of quantum mechanics, the two-slit experiment providing a standard example. There are situations, however, in which interference effects are (artificially or spontaneously) suppressed. We shall need to make precise what this means, but the theory of decoherence is the study of (spontaneous) interactions between a system and its environment that lead to such suppression of interference. This study includes detailed modelling of system-environment interactions, derivation of equations (‘master equations’) for the (reduced) state of the system, discussion of time-scales etc. A discussion of the concept of suppression of interference and a simplified survey of the theory is given in Section 2, emphasising features that will be relevant to the following discussion (and restricted to standard non-relativistic particle quantum mechanics.[1] A partially overlapping field is that of decoherent histories, which proceeds from an abstract definition of loss of interference, but which we shall not be considering in any detail
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References found in this work BETA
The Emergent Multiverse: Quantum Theory According to the Everett Interpretation.David Wallace - 2012 - Oxford University Press.
Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics: Collected Papers on Quantum Philosophy.John Stewart Bell - 2004 - Cambridge University Press.
Unified Dynamics for Microscopic and Macroscopic Systems.GianCarlo Ghirardi, Alberto Rimini & Tullio Weber - 1986 - Physical Review D 34 (D):470–491.
Many Worlds?: Everett, Quantum Theory, & Reality.Simon Saunders, Jonathan Barrett, Adrian Kent & David Wallace (eds.) - 2010 - Oxford University Press UK.
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Citations of this work BETA
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Quantum Theory: A Pragmatist Approach.Richard Healey - 2012 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (4):729-771.
GRW as an Ontology of Dispositions.Mauro Dorato & Michael Esfeld - 2010 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 41 (1):41-49.
Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.Jan Faye - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
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