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# Supersymmetry and 𝑑-Wave Superconductivity

## Abstract

Motivated by a recent development in the field theory of the fractional quantum Hall effect, we propose a supersymmetric field theoretical model of quantum critical $`d`$-wave and $`d+id`$-wave superconductors. New concept is a composite particle with the supercharge which is formed by electron (hole) and supersymmetric collective configurations of spin and charge. Quantum critical $`d`$-wave superconductor is characterized as the condensate of these composite particles.
PACS:74.20-z, 11.30 Pb

Kazusumi Ino

Nomura Research Institute,Hongo 2-2-9,Bunkyo-ku,Tokyo,113-0033,Japan

Introduction.  High $`T_c`$ superconductor  is a strongly correlated system exhibiting strange behaviors which cannot be captured by the Fermi liquid theory where quasiparticles are screened enough to be weakly coupled. A key basis of strong correlation is low-dimensionality : the transport property is dominated by the $`\mathrm{CuO}_2`$ planes between insulating layers. The most crucial consequence of low dimensionality is the strong Coulomb interaction. In two dimensions, the Coulomb interaction remains much stronger than in three dimensions because the constraint to the plane prevents the electrons (holes) to be screened enough. This is actually the essential cause of the fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE). There, instead of screening, electrons non-perturbatively capture a vortex, forming composite fermions. This mechanism enables electrons to recoil each other by acquiring non-zero relative angular momentum, whereby the Coulomb energy is lowered. Although FQHE takes place in a strong magnetic field, this logic is by no means restricted to such a situation.

Besides the Coulomb interaction, antiferromagnetic (AF) interaction is believed to be important in high $`T_c`$ superconductor. The parent compound of high $`T_c`$ superconductor is an insulator with the long-range antiferromagnetic order. Only a small amount of doping is necessary to destroy the order. Doping introduces holes on the $`\mathrm{CuO}_2`$ planes which become the charge carrier. From the logic above, these holes should capture a vortex to lower the Coulomb energy. However, as these holes also have spin, it seems sensible to consider that the captured vortex also has the flux of spin (spin flux). Such a flux is carried by spin-texture. This kind of topological doping idea has been considered in some studies . It naturally explains the fact that a small portion of doing is enough to destroy the AF order since such a topological charge can flip the spins globally. Also, in the AF background, to avoid to flip many spins, the configuration with spin flux is expected to have a tendency to form a pair or stripe. In Ref., the capturing mechanism of spin flux is formulated as an abelian Chern-Simons (CS) gauge theory interacting with a complex boson which is akin to the field theory of FQHE. In this model, superconducting phase is realized as the paired condensate of composite fermionic particles with the spin flux. The pairing symmetry is $`p+ip`$-wave. On the FQHE side, this model corresponds to the Halperin 331 state .

Various experiments on high $`T_c`$ superconductor confirm that the actual pairing symmetry is $`d`$-wave. This pairing symmetry leads to gapless quasiparticles residing at the nodes of the pair wavefunction. Recent photoemission  and Thz conductivity experiments  have indicated an anomalously short lifetime for the fermionic quasiparticles near the nodes. A natural explanation below $`T_c`$ is due to a proximity to a quantum phase transition  to some other state . The global symmetry and field theoretical considerations  restrict the state to be the $`d+id`$ state . Under the existence of such a quantum phase transition, the finite temperature property of high $`T_c`$ superconductor may be dictated by the quantum critical point. In particular, high critical temperature may be sustained by the quantum critical point.

It is tempting to ask whether it is possible to synthesize the topological idea with the quantum phase transition. Because the $`d+id`$ state is $`T`$-violating, the spin flux attachment via Chern-Simons gauge theory may be playing a role. However $`d`$-wave pairing symmetry is outside the reach of abelian Chern-Simons theory. On the FQHE side, an example of $`d`$-wave paired FQH state is known as the Haldane-Rezayi (HR) state  which was originally proposed to solve the $`\nu =5/2`$ puzzle . The HR state is quantum critical  with a neutral massless excitation of spin 1/2. Recently a supersymmetric quantum field theory of the HR state has been formulated . It is a certain 2+1 dimensional super Chern-Simons gauge theory. In this theory, the topological charge dual to spin is not just a spin flux, but a super flux with an additional fermionic flux associated with the supercharges. These fluxes lead to the quantum critical $`d`$-wave pairing of composite fermions. Quantum criticality is tied to the local supersymmetry breaking in this perspective.

In this paper, we extend these concepts to a model of high $`T_c`$ superconductor by extending the spin flux attachment to the super flux attachment. Namely we consider a picture that holes introduced in the $`\mathrm{CuO}_2`$ plane by doping will capture a supersymmetric vortex with the super flux. Somewhat puzzling appearance of two abelian gauge symmetries for the HR state noted in  turns out to have a natural physical meaning. The $`d+id`$ state will be characterized as the condensate of composite particle with the flux associated with these gauge symmetries.

The Theory.  For convenience, we will call the charge carrier as electron hereafter. We first present a preliminary observation on the ground state (GS) wave function $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}(x_1,x_2,\mathrm{})`$ of $`2N`$ electrons in two dimensions with the Coulomb interaction. The vortex capturing mechanism described above results in the zero point structure of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}`$. The most convenient way to express the structure is through Operator Product Expansion (OPE). We assume that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ has a following OPE,

$`\mathrm{lim}_{x_1x_2}\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}(x_1,x_2,\mathrm{})|x_1x_2|^l\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{GS}}^{12}+\mathrm{}`$ (1)
where $`l`$ is a nonnegative integer determined only by the quantum numbers of particles 1, 2 and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_{\mathrm{GS}}^{12}`$ is a function which does not have a zero point at $`x_1x_2`$. We also assume that $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ has a factorization into the spin and the charge factors $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}=\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{charge}}`$ where $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{charge}}`$ is non-singular function while $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ can have a polynomial singularity. The zeroes of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{charge}}`$ and the singularity of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ are constrained by the condition of $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ to stand for the electron system.

With these assumptions we construct a field theory where electrons capture a super flux. For this end, we will directly construct the model with all the required symmetries rather than take a map of singular gauge transformation. Thus, we consider a lagrangian of the form $`=_{\mathrm{spin}}+_{\mathrm{charge}}.`$ $`_{\mathrm{charge}}`$ is the lagrangian for the charge sector with the Coulomb interaction. We consider a theory in which $`_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ has the supersymmetry of Ref.. Let us give the supersymmetry algebra. It has four generators $`P^\mu ,Q,\stackrel{~}{Q},\mu =0,1`$, satisfying following commutation relations

$`[P^\mu ,P^\nu ]=0,\{Q,Q\}=2\gamma _\mu P^\mu ,[P^\mu ,Q]=2i\gamma ^\mu \stackrel{~}{Q},`$ (2)
where we set $`\gamma ^0=\gamma ^1=\gamma _0=\gamma _1=1`$. Other commutators are all set to zero. These commutation relations satisfy the Jacobi identity and form a graded Lie algebra. We may define an invariant metric by the trace

$`\mathrm{Tr}(P^\mu P^\nu )={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\eta ^{\mu \nu },\mathrm{Tr}(\stackrel{~}{Q}Q)={\displaystyle \frac{i}{2}}.`$ (3)
In (2), supercharges appear unsymmetrically. To treat them in a symmetric way, we may take a basis in spin by $`Q^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(Q+\stackrel{~}{Q}),Q^{}=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}(Q\stackrel{~}{Q})`$. Similar enlarged gauge symmetry has been known in supergravity  and also studied in the relation between CS theory and superstring theories . Physical meaning of (2) is that $`Q`$ is the sum of the supercharges for spins, $`\stackrel{~}{Q}`$ is the asymmetry between them, and $`P^\mu `$ expresses the effect of the Coulomb interaction on the paired supercharges .

The one-form gauge field has the expansion

$`𝒜=iA^\mu P_\mu +\psi Q\stackrel{~}{\psi }\stackrel{~}{Q},`$ (4)
where $`A^\mu `$ is a U(1) gauge field, $`\psi `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\psi }`$ are fermionic gauge fields. We will couple a non-relativistic matter to these gauge fields. We consider the minimal supermultiplet which arises from a parametrization of supergroup $`Z=e^X`$ where $`X=i\varphi _\mu P^\mu +\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\lambda Q\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\stackrel{~}{\lambda }\stackrel{~}{Q}`$. Here $`\varphi _\mu `$ is a real boson, $`\lambda `$ and $`\stackrel{~}{\lambda }`$ are real fermions. The construction based on real bosons instead of complex bosons means that we deal with a vortex field from the start. Locally supersymmetric lagrangian is given as nonrelativistic chiral lagrangian:

$`_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ $`=`$ $`2i\mathrm{Tr}(XZ^1D_tZ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}\mathrm{Tr}(Z^1D^iZZ^1D_iZ)`$ (5)
$`+`$ $`A_\mu J_{\mathrm{top}}^\mu +V(Z)+_{\mathrm{CS}},`$ (6)
where $`D_t=_t𝒜_t,D_i=_i𝒜_i`$. The first term in $`_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ is fixed by the requirement for $`\varphi _\mu `$ to have the ordinary non-relativistic kinetic term with mass $`m`$. $`J_{\mathrm{top}}^{\mu l}=\frac{1}{2}ϵ^{lmn}_m_n\varphi ^\mu `$ is the topological charge originated from the topology of the target space ( a torus $`T^2`$). $`V(Z)`$ is an invariant potential for $`Z`$. $`_{\mathrm{CS}}`$ is the CS term for $`𝒜`$

$`_{\mathrm{CS}}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}\mathrm{Tr}\left(𝒜d𝒜+{\displaystyle \frac{2}{3}}𝒜𝒜𝒜\right)`$ (7)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}A^\mu dA_\mu +i\stackrel{~}{\psi }d\psi +i\psi \gamma ^\mu \psi A_\mu \right).`$ (8)
The lagrangian $`_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ has the local supersymmetry $`ZU^1(x)ZU(x)`$. In components, $`_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ becomes

$`_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ $`=`$ $`\varphi ^\mu (i_t+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2m}})\varphi _\mu +i\stackrel{~}{\lambda }(i_t+{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }}{2m}})\lambda 2\sqrt{2}\lambda \gamma ^\mu \varphi _\mu \psi _t`$ (9)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{m}}\{i^i\lambda \gamma _\mu \lambda A_i^\mu +\sqrt{2}i(^i\lambda \gamma ^\mu \varphi _\mu +\lambda \gamma ^\mu ^i\varphi _\mu )\psi _i\}`$ (10)
$`+`$ $`A_\mu J_{\mathrm{top}}^\mu +V(Z)+_{\mathrm{CS}}.`$ (11)
In the low-energy limit, matter fields and collective excitations are reduced to the Wilson lines. For $`n`$ Wilson lines, their current is a sum of delta functions at their contours $`𝒥=_{i=1}^nj^sT_s\delta (C_i)`$ where $`T_s`$ represents the generators of the gauge group. Then the physics in the low-energy limit is described by the action

$`𝒮_{\mathrm{spin}}={\displaystyle \frac{1}{4\pi }}{\displaystyle \mathrm{Tr}\left(𝒜d𝒜+\frac{2}{3}𝒜𝒜𝒜\right)}+{\displaystyle \mathrm{Tr}(𝒜𝒥)}.`$ (12)
In this form, the states in this system can be exactly studied through the CS/CFT relation . The Hilbert space of the Chern-Simons theory (12) is the space of conformal blocks of $`c=2+2`$ conformal field theory on the cylinder at the infinity . The $`c=2`$ part is realized by the symplectic fermions $`\theta ^a`$, while the $`c=2`$ part is realized by two bosons $`\phi ^\mu `$ which together form a complex boson $`\phi ^{}`$. This CFT has a Parisi-Soulas symmetry $`Q_\mathrm{g}^a`$ as well as two U(1) symmetries $`P_\mathrm{g}^0`$ and $`P_\mathrm{g}^1`$ ($`\mathrm{g}`$ stands for “global”). Configurations of the system are classified by their behavior at the infinity which is determined by the action of $`Q_\mathrm{g}^a,P_\mathrm{g}^0`$, $`P_\mathrm{g}^1`$ and U(1) symmetry of $`_{\mathrm{charge}}`$. We can identify them by the fermions and the charges and denote them as $`(\psi _s^a,q^0,q^1,q_e)`$. Here $`a`$ and $`s`$ stand for the spin and the holonomy for the fermion respectively. We denote $`s=\mathrm{R}`$ for the trivial holonomy and $`s=\mathrm{NS}`$ for the holonomy $`e^{i\pi }`$.

Let us now describe phases in this system. The charge part is implicit but satisfies the conditions described above.

Quantum Critical $`d`$-Wave.  We first consider the ground state of $`2N`$ electrons which is obtained as a paired collection of $`N`$ $`(\psi _\mathrm{R}^{},1,1,1)`$ and $`N`$ $`(\psi _\mathrm{R}^{},1,1,1)`$. The charge part $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{charge}}`$ has zero points of degree $`2`$ for this state. From the CS/CFT relation of Ref., $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ can be explicitly calculated as a conformal block of corresponding primary fields. It is given by

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ $`=`$ $`\theta ^{}e^\phi ^{}(z_1^{})\theta ^{}e^\phi ^{}(z_2^{})\mathrm{}\theta ^{}e^\phi ^{}(z_{2N}^{})`$ (13)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{det}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{(z_i^{}z_j^{})^2}}\right).`$ (14)
This sate is spin-singlet $`d`$-wave. The FQH counterpart of this state is the HR state . We can characterize the paired condensate by gauge symmetry breaking. In our case, two species of composite fermionic particles condensate. The supersymmetry is divided into two parts each of which vanishes in the configuration of one species of composite particle. A collection of one species breaks half of the supersymmetry. When both species are present, both parts of the supersymmetry are broken.

Let us next consider quasiparticles. For the paired state, the elementary quasiparticle will appear with magnetic flux halved. Such quasiparticle also generates a non-trivial holonomy $`e^{i\pi }`$ for $`A^0`$ or $`\psi ^a`$. As shown in Ref., the modular invariance of the CFT admits the existence of such a configuration only for $`\psi ^a`$. Thus the elementary quasiparticle and the elementary quasihole are characterized as the species $`(\psi _{NS}^a,0,0,\frac{1}{2})`$, $`(\psi _{NS}^a,0,0,\frac{1}{2})`$. In the CFT, these excitations are created by the twist field $`\sigma ^a`$ for $`\theta ^a`$ (with the charge part).

We also note that half of the supersymmetry which doesn’t vanish in the configuration of one species of composite particle produce a fermionic zero mode in the configuration. The configuration with a fermionic zero mode gives a neutral massless quasiparticle with spin $`1/2`$ which is generated by the logarithmic field in the $`\mathrm{CFT}`$. This is an evidence of quantum criticality of the state as argued for the HR state .

$`d+id`$ Wave.  We next consider the ground state of $`2N`$ electrons which is obtained as a paired collection of $`N`$ $`(0,1,1,1)`$ and $`N`$ $`(0,1,1,1)`$. In this state electrons do not carry a fermionic charge. Accordingly the fermionic gauge fields are decoupled in this state. These Wilson lines correspond to $`\phi ^{}e^\phi ^{},\overline{\phi }^{}e^\phi ^{}`$ in the CFT respectively ( not $`e^\phi ^{},e^\phi ^{}`$ since they have conformal dimension zero). This is justified by the property of these fields that they become the extending fields which gives a consistent $`c=2`$ rational conformal field theory with the modular invariance. The charge part $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{charge}}`$ has a holomorphic zero points of odd integer degree for this state. $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ is explicitly given by

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ $`=`$ $`\phi ^{}e^\phi ^{}(z_1^{})\overline{\phi }^{}e^\phi ^{}(z_2^{})\mathrm{}\overline{\phi }^{}e^\phi ^{}(z_{2N}^{})`$ (15)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{per}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{(z_i^{}z_j^{})^2}}\right).`$ (16)
This pairing is spin-triplet $`d`$-wave the form of which is known in the context of FQHE . In this state, two U(1) symmetries are spontaneously broken. Quasiparticles in this system has a half flux for the combined gauge field $`\gamma ^\mu A_\mu `$. In the corresponding $`c=2`$ CFT, it is created by the twist field for the complex boson $`\phi ^{}`$. This state is gapped without massless neutral excitation. Thus it is actually $`d+id`$-wave. For the FQHE side, the emergence of this state in the theory suggests the existence of “spin-triplet hierarchy” on the HR state .

Quantum Critical $`p`$-Wave. We next consider the state of $`2N`$ electrons which is obtained as a paired collection of $`N`$ $`(\psi _\mathrm{R}^{},1,0,1)`$ and $`N`$ $`(\psi _\mathrm{R}^{},1,0,1)`$. The charge part $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{charge}}`$ has holomorphic zero points of odd integer degree for this state. The CFT for the spin part is given by the $`c=1`$ $`\beta `$-$`\gamma `$ ghost system  with an extension on the zero modes . $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ can be explicitly calculated as a conformal block of $`\beta `$-$`\gamma `$

$`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ $`=`$ $`\beta (z_1^{})\gamma (z_2^{})\mathrm{}\beta (z_{2N1}^{})\gamma (z_{2N}^{})`$ (17)
$`=`$ $`\theta ^{}e^{\phi ^0}(z_1^{})\theta ^{}e^{\phi ^0}(z_2^{})\mathrm{}\theta ^{}e^{\phi ^0}(z_{2N}^{})`$ (18)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{per}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1}{z_i^{}z_j^{}}}\right).`$ (19)
This state is spin-singlet $`p`$-wave. The FQH counterpart of this state is the permanent state forming a hierarchy of the HR state . As in the quantum critical $`d`$-wave state, a collection of one species breaks half of the supersymmetry. When both species are present, both parts of the supersymmetry are broken. Accordingly this state also has neutral massless excitations created by logarithmic field in the CFT. This is the sign of the quantum criticality as was argued for the quantum critical $`d`$-wave state.

Quasiparticle in this state generates a non-trivial holonomy $`e^{i\pi }`$ for $`\psi ^a`$. The elementary quasiparticle and the quasihole are characterized as the species $`(\psi _{NS}^a,0,0,\frac{1}{2})`$, $`(\psi _{NS}^a,0,0,\frac{1}{2})`$. As in the quantum critical $`d`$-wave state, these excitations are created by the twist field $`\sigma ^a`$ for $`\theta ^a`$ (with a charge part).

The CFT of this state and the CFT for the $`d+id`$ state have the same partition function up to the inclusion of a half flux . It suggests a close relation between them.

Phase Diagram. In Ref. the phase diagram shown in Fig.1 is proposed for the $`d`$-wave superconductor. It is argued that the $`d`$-wave superconductor is at a proximity to the quantum phase transition to the $`d+id`$ superconductor. In Fig.1 the parameter $`r`$ can be the doping parameter, the inverse of the strength of the external magnetic field and so on.

Let us compare this picture with our theory. The $`d+id`$ superconductor and the quantum critical point are identified with the $`d+id`$-wave state and the quantum critical $`d`$-wave state respectively. Thus neutral massless quasiparticles at the ’quantum critical soup’ arises from the supersymmetry breaking.

In our theory, time-reversal symmetry is implicitly broken, thus non $`T`$-violating $`d`$-wave superconductor is out of reach. One possibility is to consider it as the quantum critical $`d`$-wave state disturbed by the underlying square lattice symmetry. This line of argument has been given for the $`p`$-wave case in Ref..

Our theory predicts the existence of another quantum critical point at which the quantum critical $`p`$-wave state emerges. Almost equivalent CFTs for the $`d+id`$ and the quantum critical $`p`$-wave states suggest that the $`d+id`$ state exposes to the quantum critical point. By interpreting $`r`$ as the inverse of the strength of the external magnetic field, quantum phase transitions from $`d`$-wave $``$ quantum critical $`d`$ $``$ $`d+id`$ $``$ quantum critical $`p`$ is likely to be induced by increasing the magnetic field strength (Fig.2). An intriguing aspect of this picture is a possible direct transition between two quantum critical states, which is compared to the spin-singlet FQH hierarchy . As noted in Ref., the inverse transition from quantum $`p`$-wave to quantum $`d`$-wave is achieved by capturing of the vortex with the unit flux for $`A^1`$, which is the same as the $`p+ip`$-wave pairing .

Another intriguing aspect on the quantum critical $`p`$-wave state is its relevance to the pseudo-gap state. This arises when we interpret $`r`$ as the hole concentration. To relate the quantum critical $`p`$-wave state to the psuedo-gap state, we must consider the quantum critical $`p`$-wave state without the charge condensation (Fig.3). It means that the condensation occurs only for the spin-part. This identification seems natural when one takes into account the symmetric staggered flux in $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{spin}}`$ of (19) (the permanent factor) is what is expected for the spin-texture picture of doped holes in the AF background.

Discussions. In this paper, we proposed a supersymmetric field theory which naturally embodies conjectured phases of the $`d`$-wave superconductor. This model has rich theoretical contents rooted in deep aspects of topological quantum field theory , supersymmetry  and conformal field theory . Although we concentrate on condensed phases, it is also possible to consider the normal state, providing a realization of the spin-charge separation  in a new way.

The most important question we didn’t address in this paper is the high critical temperature $`T_c`$. We’d like to consider it as a property of the field theory at the quantum critical point. In our model, the key property is the local supersymmetry of (12) and the emergence of fermionic gauge field associated with it. By the strong suppression through the fermionic gauge field, $`\mathrm{\Psi }_{\mathrm{GS}}`$ at the quantum critical $`d`$-wave state has no zero points between the paired electrons. The same mechanism should modify the temperature dependence of the effective potential of the charges. Thus we suggest a study on the beta function of the potential for future work.

Acknowledgement. The author is grateful to Masaki Oshikawa for helpful discussions.


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# Frequently Asked Questions about Decoherence

Abstract We give a short, critical review of the issue of decoherence. We establish the most general framework in which decoherence can be discussed, how it can be quantified and how it can be measured. We focus on environment induced decoherence and its degree of usefulness for the interpretation of quantum theory. We finally discuss the emergence of a classical world. An overall emphasis is given in pointing at common fallacies and misconceptions.
0. The aim of this paper
This paper gives a review to the phenomenon of decoherence. Its emphasis is rather distinct than the one commonly encountered in the literature. Usually the discussion of decoherence is accompanied by an explicit or implicit acceptance of a realist interpretational stance (usually a variation of the Everett stance). However, decoherence as a physical phenomenon is independent of the choice of interpretation and makes sense even in an operationalist perspective, like the Kopenhagen interpretation.

This review takes then a minimalist perspective: it focuses on issues that do not require any more specific commitment than that standard quantum theory is a mathematical model that adequately describes experimental outcomes. This is something that all interpretational scheme accept either either as a starting point or a consequence. We therefore refrain from entering detailed discussion of topics and results that are heavily interpretation-dependent.

In addition, we try to avoid extensive discussion on interpretational issues, but at certain points we have to touch upon such issues, mainly when we find caution about strong claims to be necessary.
1. What is meant by decoherence?
In full generality, decoherence can be defined as the phenomenon by which quantum mechanical systems behave as though they are described by classical probability theory. In other words, a quantum mechanical system exhibits decoherence, when all typical features of quantum mechanical probability are suppressed. Since probability refers to the statistical properties of systems under study, decoherence refers to behavior that can be inferred from the statistical analysis in a collection of identically prepared systems 111 Here, we shall not consider decoherence in theories that employ fundamental modifications of quantum theory, such as adding stochastic terms in Schrödinger’s equation . Our focus is on classical behavior and its emergence from the standard quantum mechanical formalism..
Quantum theory is a theory of complex amplitudes, a fact that is responsible for the distinctive features of quantum probability. In particular
\- It implies the existence of off- diagonal elements of the density matrix. Given a density matrix $`\widehat{\rho }`$, the state of a system is specified not only by the probability distribution with respect to a basis $`|i`$, $`p_i=i|\widehat{\rho }|i`$, but also by the off-diagonal elements $`i|\widehat{\rho }|j`$. The latter have no analogue in classical probability.
\- Interference phases appear when we study the probabilistic aspects of quantum systems at successive instants of time. This behavior is highlighted by the two-slit experiment. Consider a system prepared at a state $`|\psi `$ and experimental set-up, by which there are two possible alternatives (two slits) at time $`t_1`$, represented by the projection operators $`P_1`$ and $`P_2`$, And a number of possible alternatives represented by $`Q_i`$ at time $`t_2>t_1`$ (the screen). The probability that the system will pass from the slit $`i`$ at time $`t_1`$ and will register at $`j`$ at time $`t_2`$ is equal to

$$p(i,t_1;j,t_2)=\psi |\widehat{P}_i\widehat{Q}_j\widehat{P}_i|\psi $$
(1)
(We have assumed that the Hamiltonian is equal to zero.) If we consider the probabilities $`p(j,t_2)`$ that the system is detected in the position $`j`$ at time $`t_2`$ then we see that these probabilities do not  satisfy the additivity condition

$$p(j,t_2)=p(1,t_1;j,t_2)+p(2,t_1;j,t_2)$$
(2)
The failure of the additivity condition to hold is equal to $`Re\psi |\widehat{P}_1\widehat{Q}_j\widehat{P}_2|\psi `$. This is essentially the interference phase between the two ”histories”.
\- General theorems (due to Bell  and Wigner ) establish that there exists no probability density that can reproduce all predictions of quantum theory, in particular ones that refer simultaneously to non-commuting observables. But even when we restrict to commutative observables, there exists not a probability theory that can reproduce predictions of multi-time probabilities.
Hence, decoherence is mathematically identified through either the diagonalisation of a density matrix, or the suppression of interference phases or the ability to adequately model a quantum system by a classical stochastic process 222It is important to remark on a common error that arises due to the double semantics of the word coherence. Originally coherence referred to behavior of waves, meaning essentially the absence of spatial dispersion. Due to the wave nature of Schrödinger’s equation the word was transferred there. However, the wave function in quantum theory is not a real wave, rather a probabilistic object. Hence, quantum coherence is fundamentally defined as a statistical concept, rather than a wave one. In addition it always needs to refer to a particular basis. In field theories, however, observables are of a wave nature themselves. Hence, both notions of coherence can be employed. There is often confusion, because of this and absence of wave coherence is often confused with quantum decoherence. This might lead to absurd expressions, such as propagation of decoherence or local decoherence in quantum field theoretic or many-body systems. Take, for instance, the coherent states $`|z`$ of the EM field. One can choose for $`z(𝐱)`$ functions, that correspond to classical field configurations that exhibit spatial coherence. (The use of the word “coherent” for the name of coherent states refers to classical coherence of the electromagnetic field). Let us take two of them $`z_1(𝐱)`$ and $`z_2(𝐱)`$. Each state exhibits classical coherence but trivial quantum coherence (with respect to the phase space basis). The state $`|z_1+|z_2`$ is highly coherent quantum mechanically, but incoherent classically. The state $`|z_1+z_2`$ exhibits trivial quantum coherence and no classical coherence. Finally, the state $`\frac{1}{2}(|z_1z_1|+|z_2z_2|)`$ exhibits neither classical nor quantum coherence..

One should nonetheless distinguish between two very different uses of the word decoherence. One refers to the classicalisation of the statistics of a quantum system as a process that takes place in time  and the other to the emergence of classical behavior inherent in a sufficiently coarse-grained description of a system.

The former notion of decoherence is the one, that is more often found in the literature. It is mostly identified with environment induced decoherence . Typically this refers to the following situation. A system is prepared in a state that is a superposition of two vectors on the Hilbert space that are macroscopically distinct: $`|\psi =|1+|2`$ . When we let the system evolve, the presence of an environment implies that the state evolves non-unitarily. Hence, the initial pure state evolves into a mixed one. For certain types of environment, it might be the case, that even if the coupling of the system to the environment is weak, the density matrix of the system evolves into a state that is a mixture of the macroscopically distinct states $`|1`$ and $`|2`$. In other words, the density matrix of the system becomes rapidly (approximately) diagonal in a given basis. For reasons that will be explained later, the basis in which the density matrix is diagonalised is called the pointer basis and the timescale after which this diagonalisation has occured is known as the decoherence time.

The other type of decoherence refers to the situation, where a coarse-grained description of the system can be given in terms of classical probability theory. This is a more general idea of decoherence and as such it refers to intrinsic properties of a physical system . What we mean is the following. In general, one cannot access with perfect accuracy the properties of a physical system. One therefore recourses to a coarse-grained description at a level that us accessible to us: mathematically, this means that the properties of the system are described by projection operators $`P`$ to subspaces of the Hilbert space that are not one-dimensional ($`TrP`$ quantifies the degree of coarse-graining). As a result of the description in term of coarse-grained observables, the effect of the interference phases might be suppressed. In this case, the system can be described by a stochastic process .

The environment induced decoherence is a special case of this more general characterisation of decoherence. If the individual quantum system is described by a Hilbert space $`H_S`$ and the environment by a Hilbert space $`H_E`$, the combined system is described by a Hilbert space $`H_SH_E`$. The coarse-graining consists in the consideration of operators only of the type $`P1`$, i.e. ones that project only to the system’s Hilbert space.

We shall, hence forward , refer to the environment induced decoherence as extrinsic (since it caused by an external agent) and the second type as intrinsic decoherence, since it appears as a consequence of the basic properties of the system.
2. How is decoherence quantified?
A naive estimation of the degree of decoherence (with respect to a basis) comes from the comparison of the diagonal to the off-diagonal elements of the density matrix of the system. Hence a criterion is that $`|\widehat{\rho }_{ij}/\widehat{\rho }_{ii}|<<1`$ for all $`i,j`$. Whenever this is true, the diagonal elements $`\widehat{\widehat{\rho }}_{ii}`$ define a probability distribution $`p(i)`$ and the basis $`|i`$ is a pointer basis for this system.

This, however, is very imprecise. First, it is classically reasonable that for some $`i`$ $`\widehat{\rho }_{ii}=0`$. In this case, a simple comparison with the off-diagonal elements would not be sufficient. A more sharp criterion can be phrased in terms of information theory . Given a probability distribution $`p(i)`$ we can define the corresponding Shannon information as

$$I[p]=\underset{i}{}p(i)\mathrm{log}p(i)$$
(3)
In order to discuss classicality we need to compare this with a quantum mechanical information quantity: the von Neumann entropy

$$S[\widehat{\widehat{\rho }}]=Tr\widehat{\rho }\mathrm{log}\widehat{\rho }$$
(4)
Now it is easy to verify that if we set $`p(i)=\widehat{\rho }_{ii}`$ the following inequality holds

$$I[p]S[\widehat{\rho }]0$$
(5)
with equality only if $`\widehat{\rho }`$ is diagonal in the basis  $`|i`$.

We can, therefore, consider as a criterion for approximate diagonalisation the condition $`I[p]S[\widehat{\rho }]<<1`$. In order to establish the decoherence due to environment one has to verify that $`IS`$ rapidly falls close to zero.

However, such criteria, that refer to a given basis are not always practical or even physically meaningful. First, one does not know a priori the basis, upon which the diagonalisation will take place, if at all. Even if this is the case there is no guarantee that the decoherent behaviour of the system will be present in all physically realised measurements. For instance, a density matrix that is approximately diagonalised in position, can give highly non-classical results for measurements of momentum.

One issue that is forgotten in many analyses, is that of the robustness of the pointer basis. By this we mean, that the behaviour of the system should be ”classical” not only with respect to the operators, that correspond to the basis, but to a larger class of them. An elementary example is that of a free particle ($`H=p^2/2m`$). In the long time-limit the state becomes approximately diagonal in the momentum basis, but this is no indication of ”classical behaviour”. If one starts with a superposition of two states each of them localised in position, but with large separation of their centers, measurements of almost all observables but position would exhibit strong interference, even though the state approaches (weakly) a delta function in momentum. How this is problematic can also be understood in light of the following remarks.

There are many ways in which the term “basis” is used. Our analysis refers to discrete bases, i.e. proper orthonormal bases in the Hilbert space. But is studies of decoherence it is often taken to imply continuous bases like momentum. In this case our criteria for decoherence need to be substantially modified. (For instance, the corresponding entropies (4) are not bounded from below.) One might construct a discrete orthonormal basis by coarse graining a continuous one - as, for instance, von Neumann employed Gaussians to construct approximate position observables with discrete spectrum . But the procedure is far from unique and the degree of decoherence depends on the choice of coarse graining. One would have then to establish a relative insensitivity to such a choice in order to unambiguously identify decoherence. For this reason, approximate diagonalisation in a given continuous basis is not by itself adequate to infer that the system is effectively decoherent and additional criteria have to be established. One such idea is the one of the ”predictability sieve” , i.e. to look for bases consisting of states that are minimally entangled with the environment in the course of evolution. But generically, such states form overcomplete bases on the system’s Hilbert space and cannot provide by themselves an unambiguous basis. It is more precise to talk of an ”halo” of nearby pointer bases  rather than a precise one and to demand approximate diagonalisation in all bases of the halo.

It is, therefore, necessary to employ criteria that refer to probabilistic aspects of the system, that are not sensitive to an arbitrary choice of basis. These are provided by the phase space description of the system, that is inherent in the structure of the canonical commutation relations. Since phase space observables exhaust the physical content of a quantum system, they can provide a most robust criterion for decoherence. In particular, the most useful tool in this regard is the Wigner function. This is defined as a pseudoprobability distribution on the classical phase space. It is defined in terms of the density matrix $`\widehat{\rho }`$ as

$$W(q,p)=Tr(\widehat{\rho }\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}(q,p))$$
(6)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }(q,p)`$ is an operator defined by

$$\widehat{\mathrm{\Delta }}(q,p)=\frac{dudv}{2\pi }e^{iquipv}e^{iu\widehat{q}+iv\widehat{p}}$$
(7)
The Wigner function is not positive, hence not a true probability distribution. It can take also negative values. Quantum coherence manifests itself in oscillations around zero at the scale of $`\mathrm{}`$. The only pure states that give rise to positive Wigner functions are the Gaussian ones. For instance a quantum state that is a superposition of two Gaussians with different centers, like

$$\psi (x)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}\pi ^{1/4}\sigma }[e^{x^2/2\sigma ^2}+e^{(xL)^2/2\sigma ^2}]$$
(8)
The corresponding Wigner function is

$$W(q,p)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}\sigma }e^{\frac{p^2}{\sigma ^2}}\left(e^{\frac{x^2}{\sigma ^2}}+e^{\frac{(xL)^2}{\sigma ^2}}+2e^{\frac{L^2}{4\sigma ^2}}e^{\frac{x^2}{2\sigma ^2}\frac{(xL)^2}{2\sigma ^2}}\mathrm{cos}Lp\right)$$
(9)
The first two terms in (9) correspond to a mixture of two classical probability distributions centered around $`x=0`$ and $`x=L`$. The third term, however, exhibits strong oscillations and has a prefactor that increases exponentially with the degree of separation between the two Gaussians. When $`L/\sigma >1`$ the Wigner function the oscillating term causes the Wigner function to take negative values. It is natural then to consider the suppression of such oscillating terms as a sign of decoherence. This is equivalent to the suppression of the off-diagonal terms in a phase space basis (e.g. coherent states) and corresponds to the statement that the quantum system can be described by a probability distribution (a positive definite Wigner function).

The study of the Wigner function is a good measure for the case of environment induced decoherence. For the case of intrinsic decoherence, the best prescription comes from the consistent (decoherent ) histories approach to quantum theory .

A history $`\alpha `$ is defined as a sequence of properties of the system at successive moments of time. Hence it is represented by a sequence of projection operators $`\widehat{P}_{t_1},\mathrm{},\widehat{P}_{t_n}`$. The information about interference and probabilities is encoded in the decoherence functional, a complex valued function of pairs of histories. This is given by

$$d(\alpha ,\beta )=Tr(\widehat{C}_\alpha ^{}\widehat{\rho }_0\widehat{C}_\beta )$$
(10)
where

$$\widehat{C}_\alpha =e^{i\widehat{H}t_1}\widehat{P}_{t_1}e^{i\widehat{H}t_1}\mathrm{}e^{i\widehat{H}(t_nt_{n1})}\widehat{P}_{t_n}e^{i\widehat{H}(t_nt_{n1})}$$
(11)
and $`\widehat{\rho }_0`$ the initial state of the system. The analysis of the two-slit experiment, we gave earlier suggests the natural following consideration. If in an exhaustive and exclusive set of histories, we have the property

$$d(\alpha ,\beta )=0,\alpha \beta $$
(12)
then there exists a probability measure for this set of histories, given by $`p(\alpha )=d(\alpha ,\alpha )`$. This means that these histories can be described by probability theory. Typically, decoherent sets contain coarse-grained histories.

Hence, the construction of the decoherence functional can provide a good criterion for decoherence. However, the objection of robustness, can be raised in this case as in the single time description. Consistency of an arbitrary set of histories might have little to do with classicality of a large class of observables. For this reason it is perhaps best to consider the decoherence functional on phase space. This can be obtained by the Wigner transform. Such a construction is given in reference  employing the techniques of continuous-time histories : it provides a natural way to determine decoherence of the most general type. Alternatively one can employ information-theoretic quantities .
3. How can decoherence be measured?
Decoherence is a probabilistic concept. Therefore, it is only in a statistical sense that we can talk about its presence in a physical system. In other words, it cannot make any conclusions about decoherence in the study of an individual quantum system, since the concept does not make any operational sense there.

The only operational way of identifying decoherence lies in the consideration of the statistical behaviour in a collection of identically prepared systems. This means, that we need to reconstruct from measurements (in different individual systems) the statistical properties of the state, in which the ensemble is prepared, study its evolution in time and establish the presence of decoherence, by using some quantitative criterion. Let us explain this in some detail. First, it is not possible to talk about decoherence by focusing on the evolution of a single variable, say $`\widehat{A}`$. The reason is the following: if we write its spectral decomposition then

$$\widehat{A}=\underset{i}{}\lambda _i|ii|,$$
(13)
the expectation value will read $`\widehat{A}=_i\lambda _i\rho _{ii}`$, in terms of the density matrix $`\rho `$ of the system. Clearly, measurements of $`\widehat{A}`$ allow us to probe only diagonal elements of the density matrix. If we are to ascertain decoherent behaviour this is not sufficient as we would need to make statements about the off-diagonal elements as well.

Hence, we conclude that, in order to claim that a system classicalises we need to have access to the values of non-commuting observables at the same time. This is not possible for a single system, however there is no problem when we consider ensembles of identically prepared systems. This means, that we prepare a collection of systems in the state $`\rho `$ and then at a moment of time we can perform measurements of different non-commuting observables at different individual systems. This way we can reconstruct the statistical properties of the system in the prepared state, through standard procedures of data analysis and state estimation (see for example . Performing such a series of measurements at different moments of time, we might notice the suppression of off-diagonal terms in some basis, that will be a sign of decoherence. It is the author’s opinion, that there is no failproof way to establish that a particular physical system decoheres or not, except for the state estimation based on measurements of incompatible observables at successive moments of time. In many body systems, in particular, one often confuses the wave notion of coherence with the quantum one.

This is definitely true for decoherence induced by the environment. There is a situation, however, that one can establish decoherence of individual systems: this is the case of (approximate) determinism. In this case, the internal dynamics of the system are such, that the coarse grained quantum mechanical observables are correlated according to a deterministic equation of motion. This is believed to arise for a large variety of quantum systems: such would be the case of the emergence of classical mechanical laws from the underlying quantum theory. In that case, the existence of almost complete predictability ensures the effective classicality in the coarse grained description of the quantum system.
4. The ”phenomenology” of environment induced decoherence.
By phenomenology we mean the theoretical study of certain open quantum systems, that are thought to provide a guide for the behaviour of quantum systems decohering under the action of an external environment.

The first studies emphasised the rapidity of the decoherence process for macroscopic systems in an incoherent (thermal) environment. A simple model by Joos and Zeh  established a much quoted result: that even if the environment is of so low temperature as the cosmic microwave background, a superposition of two states with difference in their centers of the order of 1cm, for a macroscopic body (mass $`m1kg`$), would lose its coherence in a time scale of the order of $`10^{23}`$ seconds. In this sense, environment induced decoherence of macroscopically distinct superpositions is said to be among the fastest processes in nature 333 This is valid, of course, if we assume that such superpositions can be created in the first place. This assumption is interpretation dependent, and is natural in realist interpretations of quantum theory.However, the Kopemhagen interpretation or any operational scheme for quantum theory needs not accept the possibility of existence of such states, since the macroscopic classical world is assumed, a priori..

The main paradigm, though, for studies of this type are the quantum Brownian motion models . They consist of a particle with mass $`M`$ and moving in a potential $`V(x)`$ (the system), in contact with a large number of harmonic oscillators (the bath) . The Hamiltonian of the system is therefore

$$H=\frac{p^2}{2M}+V(x)+\underset{\alpha }{}(\frac{p_\alpha ^2}{2m_\alpha }+\frac{1}{2}m_\alpha \omega _\alpha ^2q_\alpha ^2)+\underset{\alpha }{}c_\alpha q_\alpha x$$
(14)
We trace out the contribution of the environment and study the evolution of the reduced density matrix. The contribution of the environment is contained in the spectral density, a function $`I(\omega )`$ defined by

$$I(\omega )=\underset{\alpha }{}\frac{c_\alpha ^2}{2m_\alpha \omega ^2}\delta (\omega \omega _\alpha )$$
(15)
Three are the important parameters that characterise physical spectral functions: a high energy cut-off $`\mathrm{\Lambda }`$, an exponent characterising the low-frequency behaviour and an overall multiplicative constant $`\gamma `$ that incorporates the effects of dissipation. Typically, one writes the spectral density as

$`I(\omega )=\gamma \omega ^se^{\omega ^2/\mathrm{\Lambda }^2}`$ (16)
When the initial state of the total system is assumed factorised, the density matrix of the environment is Gaussian and $`V(x)`$ is quadratic (or zero), one can exactly solve for the propagator of the reduced density matrix of the system and construct the master equation, that describes its evolution.

A well studied case is the Fokker-Planck limit: the environment is ohmic ($`s=1`$) and in a thermal state with temperature $`T>>\mathrm{\Lambda }`$. In this case the reduced density matrix satisfies the Markov differential equation, which is known as the Kramers equation

$$i\frac{}{t}\rho =[\frac{p^2}{2M}+V(x),\rho ]\gamma [x,\{p,\rho \}]2iM\gamma T[x,[x,\rho ]].$$
(17)
In this regime, the evolution of a state of the form (8) shows an exponential suppression of the oscillating term in the corresponding Wigner function with the decay rate of the form of $`e^{2M\gamma TL^2t}`$, hence a decoherence time $`t_{dec}=(M\gamma TL^2)^1`$. There are three important timescales in this model, that are generic in many open quantum systems.

There is the inverse cut-off time $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$, that describes the immediate response of the reservoir to the quantum system. For times $`t<\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$ the factorised initial condition gives often a bad approximation, since at these times the evolution is very sensitive on high energy correlations between system and environment  that are operationally uncontrollable. There is the classicalisation time $`t_{cl}=(M\gamma T)^{1/2}`$ citeAnHa94. This is an upper limit to decoherence time ; in fact one can show that after this time thermal fluctuations overcome the quantum ones and that the system is adequately described by the evolution of a classical probability distribution. This timescale governs the rate by which quantum phases move from the system to the environment. Finally there exists the relaxation time $`\gamma ^1`$, which governs the rate of energy flow from the system to the environment. For realistic values of the parameters, we have that $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1<<t_{cl}<<\gamma ^1`$. This separation of time scales conforms to the most clear-cut case of environment induced decoherence: the timescales that governs a purely quantum process (the escape of phases to the environment) is much smaller than the timescales of the classical energy exchange. Hence, even when one can consider the system as almost closed ($`\gamma ^1\mathrm{}`$), the loss of quantum phases is still important and sufficient to classicalise the system.

In other regimes, these three timescales are not widely separate. For instance, at low temperature (and ohmic environment) decoherence appears within a timescale of $`\mathrm{\Lambda }^1`$. However, in this regime the use of a factorised initial condition is not necessarily physical and one should consider the possibility that the decoherence phenomena predicted are artifacts of an unphysical initial condition, or at least that decoherence is contingent on the initial correlations of the system to the environment .

The Ohmic case is the standard by which to judge quantum Brownian motion. The cases of subohmic ($`s<1`$) and supraohmic ($`s>1`$) environments are different. In the former the response of the system to the environment is much stronger and decoherence is more efficient, while the opposite behaviour is manifested in the latter case.

There is a sense in which environment induced decoherence is highly dependent on the infrared behaviour of the environment. Intuitively the reason is that if the information of the quantum phases should leave the individual system, be spread in the environment and not return back. In order for this to happen it is not only necessary that the environment is large, but its recurrence time should also be large. So for instance, if the environment consisted of a large number of harmonic oscillators with the same frequency $`\omega `$, there would typically be a recurrence time of the order of $`\omega ^1`$ and the quantum phases would reappear in the quantum system after this time. (In a sense it is similar to the Poincaré recurrence of classical mechanics.) It is, therefore, essential that the recurrence time is long: in harmonic oscillator baths this is guaranteed by the strong presence of infra-red modes $`\omega 0`$ in the spectral density .

The behaviour, we analysed in quantum Brownian motion is often considered as paradigmatic . Indeed it is a good approximation to a large class of environments, even though it is a very special model. In addition to the spectral density, this behaviour is dependent on the choice of the initial condition (thermal state) and the coupling between system and environment. There are not any studies of initial states substantially from thermal one, but it seems reasonable that this classicalisation behaviour is typical for sufficiently ”classical” initial conditions as thermal states (or vacuum for $`T=0`$) and would not persist in states with quantum behaviour like squeezed states.

Also, in quantum Brownian motion the system couples to the environment in the position basis. A resonant type of coupling (as appears for instance in atom-field interaction ) leads to decoherence in the energy basis and within a timescale, that is of the same order of magnitude as the relaxation time. According to our previous discussion, this is reasonable since a resonant type of coupling effectively selects a part of the environment’s modes are relevant (the ones around the resonance’s frequency) and misses the important contribution of the infra-red sector. It is a matter of convention whether one will call this type of behaviour as lying within the domain of environment induced decoherence, because decoherence is in a sense trivial. The flow of quantum phases to the environment is not distinct from the energy flow. As such, the two phenomena cannot be considered as separate.

More general (non-linear) systems exhibit more complicated behaviour : this is a consequence of many time- and length- scales that characterise them. One interesting possible consequence is that decoherence is saturated at a distance of separation (in the position basis). Spin baths are thought to be agents of decoherence more effective than bosonic ones at low temperature ( see  and references therein). However, such calculations involve often a perturbative expansion, which sometimes is not a good indicator of decoherence behaviour .

In light of these remarks, we can say that in order for a environment induced decoherence to be manifested in a system interacting with an environment the following requirements must be met
i. The environment has to be itself in a ”classical” state, like a thermal state, or a vacuum. Here classical refers to its behaviour with respect to its Wigner function description.
ii. The system-environment coupling should be in a continuous (position or momentum) basis, rather than a discrete one.
iii. The spectral density of the environment has to grow slowly in the infra-red regime. In effect, this means that the environment responds more slowly in the appearance of the quantum system and hence the quantum phases are lost before the steady rate of energy flow commences.
5. What does decoherence imply for the interpretation of quantum theory?
Decoherence as a phenomenon is, in general, insensitive to the interpretation one decides to employ for quantum theory. The transition from quantum behaviour to classical statistics makes sense both in an operational setting (like the Kopenhagen interpretation) or a realist one.

However, it has been historically associated with realist interpretations of quantum theory and more particularly with the many-worlds interpretation or its offspring. These attempt to interpret the quantum mechanical formalism as though it refers to individual quantum systems, rather than statistical ensembles. These interpretations suffer from a severe problem: the fact that quantum systems cannot be said to possess a given property without making reference to the way one reasons in order to verify the truth of this assertion. This is a corollary of the non-commutativity of observables in quantum theory, or more precisely of the non-distributivity of the lattice of propositions and is known as the Kochen-Specker’s theorem . If one wants to talk about definite properties of an individual quantum system, one has always to make reference to a Hilbert space basis (or more generally an Abelian subalgebra of observables). And the initial focus of the many-worlds interpretation was to examine the presence of such bases (at least) in measurement situations.

In a realist interpretation both the measured system and the device are described by wave functions, which are elements of the Hilbert spaces $`H_S`$ and $`H_M`$ respectively. The Hilbert space of the combined systems is then $`H_SH_M`$.

A basis $`|R`$ in the $`H_M`$ is assumed to be associated to the measurement device, each possible $`R`$ corresponding to a different value of the pointer in the device. Also, let $`|i`$ denote a basis in $`H_S`$ with corresponding values $`\alpha _i`$ of the observable $`\widehat{A}`$ for the system. Initially, the total system lies in an uncorrelated state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }`$ = $`|\psi _0|R_0=(_ic_i^0|i)|R_0`$ , with $`|\psi _0`$ the initial state of the system, $`c_i^0`$ its coefficients in the basis $`|i`$ and $`|R_0`$ the initial position of the pointer. As a result of the interaction the state at the end of the process will be $`|\mathrm{\Psi }=_{Ri}d_{iR}|i|R`$. Even if there exists perfect correlation between initial eigenstates of the system and final values of the pointer (i.e. if $`|i|R_0|i|R_i`$, where $`R_i`$ is uniquely determined by the value $`i`$) any superposition in the $`|i`$ basis will lead to an entangled state for the total combined system. The apparatus is then not in a definite macroscopic configuration, which then implies that we cannot ascribe a property like the value of the pointer to it. This is the essence of the measurement problem, also known as the macroobjectification  problem. One solution is the infamous wave packet reduction, proposed by von Neumann, which states that after the measurement the state of the total system reduces to a mixture  $`_i|d_{iR_i}|^2|ii||R_iR_i|`$, which is interpreted in terms of classical statistics. This process is postulated in an ad hoc manner and is origin is seemingly mysterious.

This is accompanied with another severe problem. How can we make sure that a given apparatus is associated to a particular observable? In other words, why would the wave packet reduction take place in the $`|R_i`$ basis, which is perfectly correlated with $`i`$ and not in any other? There seems to be an arbitrariness in the choice of the basis in which a mixture collapses.

The environment induced decoherence has arisen as a possible solution for the second problem  and is also often claimed to provide a solution to the more fundamental macroobjectification problem. The essential argument is that any apparatus is in contact with the environment; the environment induces a rapid diagonalisation of the density matrix of the apparatus in a fixed basis. Hence, the wave packet reduction always takes place with respect to this basis for the total system. This (together with the interaction Hamiltonian between measured system and apparatus) is then the factor that determines, what the actual correlation between the basis of the measured system and the pointer basis of the apparatus. This proposal is a very natural solution to the problem of the arbitrariness of the pointer basis. However, there are a number of points that need to be addressed before this answer is taken as definite.

First, since the diagonalisation due to the environment is not exact, for a given state of the environment there exist a number of possible pointer bases for the apparatus, that are close (with respect to some natural distance in the apparatus’s Hilbert space). It has to be shown that the correlation between the measured system and the apparatus is largely insensitive to the precise choice one makes for the pointer basis.

Second, an apparatus can measure the same physical quantity in very different situations, that can correspond to very different states of the environment. It has therefore to be shown that the choice of the pointer basis is robust, within reasonable variations of the environment’s state and constituents. This has not yet been established from the study of the existing simple models.

The idea of the environment induced decoherence provide a good programme towards explaining the correlation of pointers in apparatuses and properties of measured systems in the realist interpretations of quantum theory, even though it cannot yet be taken as a definite answer. However, it is often claimed that environment induced decoherence provides by itself a solution of the macroobjectification problem (e.g. ). This statement is not true for the following reasons:

We saw earlier that the root of the macroobjectification problem is that the final state of the combined microscopic system and apparatus corresponds to no definite macroscopic superposition. The presence of the environment would typically make the final state mixed. Let us ignore for the moment an immediate objection: that there is no guarantee that the general state of the environment will allow it to play the role of a decohering agent and that the resulting diagonalisation will be robust. There is no reason for the resulting pointer basis of the combined system to be factorisable and hence to correspond to macroscopically distinct properties for the quantum system. This can be explicitly seen in calculations in toy detector models (one explicit calculation is found in ). Also there exist a theorem that establishes that the combined system will not exhibit states that are macroscopically definite under a wide variety of time evolution laws. Such a theorem was first proved by d’ Espagnat  and recently strengthened by Bassi and Ghirardi .

One concludes therefore that environment induced decoherence cannot by itself explain the appearance of macroscopic definite properties and a realist interpretation of quantum theory still needs an additional postulate to account for macroobjectification, as in von Neumann’s measurement theory, the Everett stance, the collapse models or in consistent histories.
6. How is the classical world explained?
One is often tempted to explain the emergence of the classical world as a result of environment induced decoherence, in the sense that the definite properties that can be attributed to objects of our experience emerge as a result of the effect of the environment. However, a sufficiently classical behaviour for the environment seems to be necessary if it is to act as a decohering agent and we can ask what has brought the environment into such a state ad-infinitum. One would be then forced to employ quantum theory at increasingly large scales and at the end such a question can only be answered at the level of considering the question at the level of the universe 444Such is a realist answer. For the Kopenhagen interpretation the classical world is usually taken as something in which the quantum description is not applicable. Strictly logically, the Kopenhagen interpretation does not need to explain the emergence of the classical world; but in this case it has to admit the failure of quantum theory to be a universal theory. Also, how a macroscopic system of of quantum constituents behaves classically..

The issue is then raised at the level of quantum cosmology. Since the universe is a closed system, the reasonable way to explain classicality in this framework is by identifying some degrees of freedom that are all pervading and sufficiently autonomous. There are many such proposals taking as a fundamental environment: the matter field fluctuations , the gravitational field , high energy modes , the higher order correlation functions  etc. The choice is often taken according to the convenience of the question one wants to study.

However, there does not exist a conclusive argument why some particular degree of freedom ought to play the degree of a decohering environment. In the case of the gravitational field its universality and the lack of a theory of quantum gravity make it a plausible candidate. Gravity is often stated as a possible cause of fundamental modifications in quantum theory  (not necessarily of the nature of environment induced decoherence as in ). However, if one insists on the environment satisfying the laws of quantum theory one still is entitled to ask, how come that it is in a state that is able to cause decoherence. The only conceivable answer is the postulation of a special initial condition. In addition, the question is raised, what sense does it make to talk about separation of degrees of freedom in highly non-linear theories, such as general relativity coupled with matter.

An environment induced decoherence seems therefore not to be able to account convincingly about the emergence of classical behaviour. But perhaps classicality arises as a result of intrinsic decoherence. This is indeed a main point of the consistent histories approach - however it does not necessitate adherence to this interpretation. To see how it works let us examine a simple example. Consider a system that is adequately described by Schrödinger’s equation in one dimension. Its phase space would be $`𝐑^2`$. In this phase space positive operators can be defined that correspond to phase space cells and for sufficiently large areas of the enclosed cell they are close to projection operators. Each of these operators $`P_C`$ can be said to correspond to the statement that the system is with high accuracy within the phase space cell $`C`$. Now, as a result of the quantum dynamics it might be that for sufficiently large cells $`C`$ the operators $`P_C`$ evolve as $`P_{C_0}P_{C_t}`$ with high accuracy. This implies that properties of the system (whenever they are definite) evolve according to approximately deterministic equations of motion. This has been proved to hold for a large class of potentials . Clearly, here classicality is a result of an approximate determinism of sufficiently coarse-grained quantities, which appear naturally from the formalism.

This was an idealised example for the case of a system with a single degree of freedom. One is, however, interested in explaining the classicality of systems that consist of a large number of degrees of freedom. In this case there are certain type of coarse-grainings that might effect a deterministic description.

First, one might choose to focus on the evolution of hydrodynamic variables, i.e. variables such as energy density, particle density etc. There are some reasons that make plausible that such quantities exhibit classical - in fact almost deterministic- behaviour in many-body systems. In particular, the densities $`\rho (x)`$ of conserved quantities (e.g. energy, charge), when integrated into finite volumes vary much slower than other currents since by virtue of the conservation equation $`\frac{\rho }{t}+𝐣=0`$, we have

$$\frac{}{t}_Vd^3x\rho (x)=_Vd^3x𝐣=_V𝑑\sigma 𝐣,$$
(18)
and given a sufficiently regular volume $`V`$ of characteristic length scale $`l`$ , the density varies with the area of its boundary, i.e. with $`l^2`$, unlike other densities that vary like $`l^3`$. So, coarse-graining in position, for sufficiently large values of $`l`$, will tend to make averaged densities of conserved quantities changing more slowly than other averaged densities. Given the fact, that conserved quantities trivially decohere , this is an indirect suggestion that these variables would be the first to examine for effective classical behaviour. There are some elementary models that support this assertion , however we yet lack a conclusive general argument. In particular, it is not yet clear, whether special initial conditions are needed in order to guarantee the decoherence of hydrodynamic variables.

Clearly, should it be shown that hydrodynamic variables habitually decohere, this would go a long way towards explaining the origin of a classical world in the cosmological context first, but also for general macroscopic systems (e.g. rivers, planets, rocks …). In particular , we could understand how to reconcile the quantum field theoretic description that is deemed necessary at the very early universe with the hydrodynamic/thermodynamic one, which suffices for the purposes of classical cosmology. It is the author’s opinion that this perhaps the only unambiguous way to establish the emergence of classicality in the cosmological context. It is also largely insensitive to the choice of interpretative scheme for quantum theory one chooses to use. At this stage, however, it is fair to say that there is not conclusive evidence about how the classical world appears and it is likely that a special initial condition is needed in order to guarantee it.