Conditions for Quantum Violation of Macroscopic Realism

Johannes Kofler and Časlav Brukner
Phys. Rev. Lett. 101, 090403 – Published 28 August 2008

Abstract

Why do we not experience a violation of macroscopic realism in everyday life. Normally, no violation can be seen either because of decoherence or the restriction of coarse-grained measurements, transforming the time evolution of any quantum state into a classical time evolution of a statistical mixture. We find the sufficient condition for these classical evolutions for spin systems under coarse-grained measurements. However, there exist “nonclassical” Hamiltonians whose time evolution cannot be understood classically, although at every instant of time the quantum state appears as a classical mixture. We suggest that such Hamiltonians are unlikely to be realized in nature because of their high computational complexity.

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  • Received 12 June 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.090403

©2008 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Johannes Kofler and Časlav Brukner

  • Fakultät für Physik, Universität Wien, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Wien, Austria
  • Institut für Quantenoptik und Quanteninformation (IQOQI), Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Boltzmanngasse 3, 1090 Wien, Austria

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Issue

Vol. 101, Iss. 9 — 29 August 2008

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