Relativistic Quantum Measurement and Decoherence

The development of a consistent picture of the processes of decoherence and quantum measurement is among the most interesting fundamental problems with far-reaching consequences for our understanding of the physical world. A satisfactory solution of this problem requires a treatment which is c- patiblewiththetheoryofrelativity,andmanydiverseapproachestosolveor circumvent the arising di?culties have been suggested. This volume collects the contributions of a workshop on Relativistic Quantum Measurement and Decoherence held at the Istituto Italiano per gli Studi Filoso?ci in Naples, April9-10,1999. Theworkshopwasintendedtocontinueapreviousmeeting entitled Open Systems and Measurement in Relativistic Quantum Theory,the talks of which are also published in the Lecture Notes in Physics Series (Vol. 526). The di?erent attitudes and concepts used to approach the decoherence and quantum measurement problem led to lively discussions during the wo- shop and are re?ected in the diversity of the contributions. In the ?rst article the measurement problem is introduced and the various levels of compatibility with special relativity are critically reviewed.In other contributions the r oles of non-locality and entanglement in quantum measurement and state vector preparation are discussed from a pragmatic quantum-optical and quant- information perspective. In a further article the viewpoint of the consistent histories approach is presented and a new criterion is proposed which re?nes thenotionofconsistency. Also,thephenomenonofdecoherenceisexamined from an open system's point of view and on the basis of superselection rules employing group theoretic and algebraic methods. The notions of hard and softsuperselectionrulesareaddressed,aswellasthedistinctionbetweenreal andapparentlossofquantumcoherence.