“A General Conceptual Framework for Decoherence in Closed and Open Systems”

MARIO CASTAGNINO; ROBERTO LAURA; OLIMPIA LOMBARDI

Vancouver

Congreso; Twentieth Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association; 2006

Philosophy of Science Association

At present, the theory of environment-induced decoherence (EID) is considered a “new orthodoxy” in the quantum physicists community (Bub 1997).  In fact, EID has been fruitfully applied in many areas of physics and supplies the basis of new technological developments (see Joos et. al 2003l).  In the field of the philosophy of physics, EID has been considered as a relevant element for the interpretation of quantum mechanics (see Bacciagaluppi and Hemmo 1994, 1996), in particular, for the explanation of the emergence of classicity from an underlying quantum world (Elby 1994, Healey 1995).