Decoherence in the cosmic background radiation
Year: 2011
Type: preprint
Abstract: In this paper, we analyze the possibility of detecting nontrivial quantum phenomena in observations of the temperature anisotropy of the cosmic background radiation (CBR), for example, if the Universe could be found in a coherent superposition of two states corresponding to different CBR temperatures. Such observations are sensitive to scalar primordial fluctuations but insensitive to tensor fluctuations, which are therefore converted into an environment for the former. Even for a free inflaton field minimally coupled to gravity, scalar-tensor interactions induce enough decoherence among histories of the scalar fluctuations as to render them classical under any realistic probe of their amplitudes. © 2011 IOP Publishing Ltd.
Authors: Mariano Franco, Esteban Calzetta
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3099347172