Modeling the decoherence of spacetime

John T. Whelan
Phys. Rev. D 57, 768 – Published 15 January 1998
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Abstract

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 Nordström-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.

  • Received 4 June 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.57.768

©1998 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

John T. Whelan*

  • Department of Physics, University of Utah, 115 S. 1400 E. Room 201, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-0830

  • *Electronic address: whelan@physics.utah.edu

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Vol. 57, Iss. 2 — 15 January 1998

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