1996/12/31 by J. T. Whelan, John T. Whelan · 1 citation
Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Diagonal #General relativity #Geometry #Mathematics #Metric (unit) #Physics #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum #Quantum decoherence #Quantum mechanics #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #Spacetime #Theoretical physics #gr-qc #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.57.768
published as Phys.Rev. D57 (1998) 768-797 · 38 pages, REVTeX; 7 diagrams and 6 PostScript figures included via epsfig. Final cosmetic changes made at publication
openalex publication_date 1998/01/15 · arxiv created 1998/05/07 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The question of whether unobserved short-wavelength modes of the gravitational field can induce decoherence in the long-wavelength modes (``the decoherence of spacetime'') is addressed using a simplified model of perturbative general relativity, related to the Nordstr"om-Einstein-Fokker theory, where the metric is assumed to be conformally flat. For some long-wavelength coarse grainings, the Feynman-Vernon influence phase is found to be effective at suppressing the off-diagonal elements of the decoherence functional. The requirement that the short-wavelength modes be in a sufficiently high-temperature state places limits on the applicability of this perturbative approach.