Decoherence in an interacting quantum field theory: the vacuum case

We apply the decoherence formalism to an interacting scalar field theory. In the spirit of the decoherence literature, we consider a “system field” and an “environment field” that interact via a cubic coupling. We solve for the propagator of the system field, where we include the self-energy correct...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Koksma, Jurjen F. (Author) , Prokopec, Tomislav (Author) , Schmidt, Michael G. (Author)
Format: Article (Journal)
Language:English
Published: 26 March 2010
In: Physical review. D, Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology
Year: 2010, Volume: 81, Issue: 6, Pages: 1-33
ISSN:1550-2368
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.81.065030
Online Access:Resolving-System, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.81.065030
Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.81.065030
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Author Notes:Jurjen F. Koksma and Tomislav Prokopec, Michael G. Schmidt
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Summary:We apply the decoherence formalism to an interacting scalar field theory. In the spirit of the decoherence literature, we consider a “system field” and an “environment field” that interact via a cubic coupling. We solve for the propagator of the system field, where we include the self-energy corrections due to the interaction with the environment field. In this paper, we consider an environment in the vacuum state (T=0). We show that neglecting inaccessible non-Gaussian correlators increases the entropy of the system as perceived by the observer. Moreover, we consider the effect of a changing mass of the system field in the adiabatic regime, and we find that at late times no additional entropy has been generated.
Item Description:Gesehen am 21.03.2023
Physical Description:Online Resource
ISSN:1550-2368
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.81.065030