Résumé / Abstract Journal-club_GReCO

Séminaire / Seminar GReCO

« Decoherence and thermalization of a pure quantum state in quantum field theory »

J. Serreau
Laboratoire AstroParticule et Comologie, Université Paris Diderot (Paris, France)

We study the real-time evolution of a self-interacting O(N) scalar field initially prepared in a pure, coherent quantum state. We present a complete solution of the nonequilibrium quantum dynamics from a 1/N-expansion of the two-particle-irreducible effective action at next-to-leading order, which includes scattering and memory effects. We demonstrate that, restricting one''s attention (or ability to measure) to a subset of the infinite hierarchy of correlation functions, one observes an effective loss of putity/coherence and, on longer time scales, thermalization. We point out that the physics of decoherence is well described by classical statistical field theory.
lundi 15 février 2010 - 11:00
Salle des séminaires Évry Schatzman
Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
Pages web du séminaire / Seminar's webpage