Decoherence time in self-induced decoherence

MARIO CASTAGNINO; OLIMPIA LOMBARDI

PHYSICAL REVIEW A - ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS

AMER PHYSICAL SOC

Año: 2005 vol. 72 p. 1 - 9

1050-2947

A general method for obtaining the decoherence time in self-induced decoherence is presented. In particular, it is shown that such a time can be computed from the poles of the resolvent or of the initial conditions in the complex extension of the Hamiltonian’s spectrum. Several decoherence times are estimated: 10 exp13–10 exp15 s for microscopic systems, and 10 exp37–10 exp39 s for macroscopic bodies. For the particular case of a thermal bath, the order of magnitude of our results agrees with that obtained by the einselection “environment-induced decoherence” approach.