Coming to terms with decoherence
In response to Charles Day’s item on the solution to Hund’s paradox (Physics Today, September 2009, page 16), Robert Harris and Leo Stodolsky write that their work 1 from the early 1980s could not yet refer to decoherence because the term was created more than five years later (Physics Today, Febru...
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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article (Journal) Editorial |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[1 July 2010]
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| In: |
Physics today
Year: 2010, Volume: 63, Issue: 7, Pages: 8 |
| ISSN: | 1945-0699 |
| DOI: | 10.1063/1.3463639 |
| Online Access: | Verlag, lizenzpflichtig, Volltext: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3463639
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| Author Notes: | Erich Joos (Schenefeld, Germany), H. Dieter Zeh (University of Heidelberg, Germany) |
| Summary: | In response to Charles Day’s item on the solution to Hund’s paradox (Physics Today, September 2009, page 16), Robert Harris and Leo Stodolsky write that their work 1 from the early 1980s could not yet refer to decoherence because the term was created more than five years later (Physics Today, February 2010, page 10). However, Day’s formulation that their results—which we used and cited in our 1985 paper 2 when the term decoherence still did not exist—were not yet couched in “the then-nascent decoherence theory” referred not to the name but to the concept. Harris and Stodolsky’s insistence that their terms “quantum damping” and “tunneling friction” are just as appropriate indicates that they adhere to a widespread misunderstanding of the concept of decoherence. |
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| Item Description: | Gesehen am 14.09.2023 |
| Physical Description: | Online Resource |
| ISSN: | 1945-0699 |
| DOI: | 10.1063/1.3463639 |