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Natural Science Forum / Physics / Research / November 2007Does Higgs interaction cause decoherence?
Hi, I was wondering whether the Higgs mechanism, by which a particle gains mass by interacting with higgs bosons, causes decoherence of the particle's wavefunction? John > Hi, > > I was wondering whether the Higgs mechanism, by which a particle gains > mass by interacting with higgs bosons, causes decoherence of the > particle's wavefunction? The short answer is Yes, since interaction with *any* field causes decoherence. However, since the coupling of Higgs to matter is very weak, this is correspondingly a weak effect. For a quantitative discussion of decoherence due to interaction of a charged particle with the electromagnetic field, check out the last chapter of _The Theory of Open Quantum Systems_ by Breuer & Petrucionne (OUP, 2007). I believe there is also more detail in other works by the same authors. Hope this helps. Igor > > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Igor Thanks for the reply and the reference. Does decoherence occur also with a static field (groundstate) or does it only occur when the particle interacts with excitations of a field (ie with real photons rather than virtual photons)? John On Nov 13, 7:30 am, eastm...@yahoo.com wrote: > > For a quantitative discussion of decoherence due to interaction of a > > charged particle with the electromagnetic field, check out the last > > chapter of _The Theory of Open Quantum Systems_ by Breuer & Petrucionne > > (OUP, 2007). I believe there is also more detail in other works by the > > same authors. > Does decoherence occur also with a static field (groundstate) or does > it only occur when the > particle interacts with excitations of a field (ie with real photons > rather than virtual photons)? Decoherence occurs even when the electromagnetic field starts out in the ground state. The presence of radiation has an additional contribution to decoherence. The reference I gave has an extensive quantitative discussion of contributions from vacuum as well as thermal fluctuations. Hope this helps. Igor >> Hi, >> >> I was wondering whether the Higgs mechanism, by which a particle gains >> mass by interacting with higgs bosons, causes decoherence of the >> particle's wavefunction? IGOR responded ... > The short answer is Yes, since interaction with *any* field causes > decoherence. However, since the coupling of Higgs to matter is very > weak, this is correspondingly a weak effect. > > ...clip... BigI: Decoherence ... collapse ... FAPP the same thingy? So Penrose experiment will work ? nss ***** > >> Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > Decoherence ... collapse ... FAPP the same thingy? So Penrose experiment > will work ? I'm not sure what mathematical framework Penrose uses to model collapse of a macroscopically superimposed state, but the idea sounds similar. Going back to the Breuer & Petruccionne reference (sorry, I earlier missed on 'c' in the second author's name), they predic that the decoherence effect is in a sense proportional to the particle-field coupling. In addition, for a large collection of particles, N, coupled to the field through their center of mass (or center of charge), the decoherence effect is amplified by a factor of N^2. The gravitational coupling constant is roughly 10^36 times smaller than the electromagnetic one. So, one would expect very weak decoherence in a neutral massive system, unless the number of particles rose to the neighborhood of 10^18, which is getting pretty damn macroscopic. So, if a Penrose-type experiment were to be performed, this number gives an approximate threshold for the size of the system which would experience sizable decoherence effects due to gravity. There are some differences between the electromagnetic and gravitational decoherence, though. The EM field has spin 1, while the the gravitational field is spin 2. This would probably result in a difference factor of order unity. However, the gravitational coupling constant is dimensionful (Newton's constant), while the electromagnetic one (the fine structure constant) is dimensionless. So, there might be an extra length scale that will amplify or diminish the decoherence effect. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure which. Hope this helps. Igor > > Hi, > [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > > Igor Thanks for the reference. Does that mean that even the interaction of a charged particle with a ground-state electromagnetic field (through virtual photons) will cause decoherence? Or does the decoherence only occur when the particle interacts with excitations of the electromagnetic field (by scattering off real photons)? John |
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