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Decoherence in Situations Involving the Gravitational Field

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Physics ((LNP,volume 538))

Abstract

Modern theories assume that the gravitational field is of a quantum nature at the most fundamental level. I explain when, why, and to which extent gravitational degrees of freedom acquire classical properties through decoherence caused by other, irrelevant, degrees of freedom. This includes the cases of cosmo- logical variables, fluctuations in the early Universe that serve as seeds for galaxies, and black holes.

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Kiefer, C. (2000). Decoherence in Situations Involving the Gravitational Field. In: Blanchard, P., Joos, E., Giulini, D., Kiefer, C., Stamatescu, IO. (eds) Decoherence: Theoretical, Experimental, and Conceptual Problems. Lecture Notes in Physics, vol 538. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46657-6_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-46657-6_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66899-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46657-4

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