1995/10/20 by J. R. Anglin, W. H. Zurek, Wojciech H. Zurek · 1 voice · 3 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.53.7327
published as Phys.Rev. D53 (1996) 7327-7335 · 11 pages, RevTeX, 1 figure (tar compressed, uu-encoded PostScript)
arxiv created 1995/10/20 · arxiv published 1995/10/20 · arxiv updated 1995/10/20 · openalex publication_date 1996/06/15 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study environmentally induced decoherence of an electromagnetic field in a homogeneous, linear, dielectric medium. We derive an independent oscillator model for such an environment, which is sufficiently realistic to encompass essentially all of linear physical optics. Applying the ``predictability sieve'' to the quantum field, and introducing the concept of a ``quantum halo'', we recover the familiar dichotomy between background field configurations and photon excitations around them. We are then able to explain why a typical linear environment for the electromagnetic field will effectively render the former classically distinct, but leave the latter fully quantum mechanical. Finally, we suggest how and why quantum matter fields should suffer a very different form of decoherence.