2012/09/03 by Shunichi Muto, Muto, Shunichi
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Biofield Effects and Biophysics #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1209.0261
openalex publication_date 2012/09/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A thought experiment is discussed to clarify the concept of decoherence. Superposition of states consisting of ground state of a single hydrogen atom and its excited state after a huge amount of time is discussed to show that the decoherence of the state, more precisely the loss of coherence, is literally the loss of ability of interference. The loss of superposition of states is just apparent or even superfacial. Applications of this example in its relation to many-world interpretation of observation of a quantum state, decoherence in usual cases, and weak collapse of wavepackets are discussed.