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On Tracial Operator Representations of Quantum Decoherence Functionals

Oliver Rudolph·J. D. Maitland Wright
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Abstract

A general `quantum history theory' can be characterised by the space of histories and by the space of decoherence functionals. In this note we consider the situation where the space of histories is given by the lattice of projection operators on an infinite dimensional Hilbert space $H$. We study operator representations for decoherence functionals on this space of histories. We first give necessary and sufficient conditions for a decoherence functional being representable by a trace class operator on $H \otimes H$, an infinite dimensional analogue of the Isham-Linden-Schreckenberg representation for finite dimensions. Since this excludes many decoherence functionals of physical interest, we then identify the large and physically important class of decoherence functionals which can be represented, canonically, by bounded operators on $H \otimes H$.

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Oliver Rudolph, J. D. Maitland Wright. 1997-05-31. On Tracial Operator Representations of Quantum Decoherence Functionals. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.532157

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