Physicist speaks on 'decoherence'

Philip Stamp of the University of British Columbia will speak on "Decoherence" at a Physics colloquium on Wednesday, March 27 at 4 p.m. in 124 Hasbrouck Laboratory.

According to Stamp, "decoherence" is the name commonly given to the destruction of quantum correlations in the dynamics of quantum systems. It has often been argued that "environmental decoherence" solves deep problems in quantum mechanics like the "measurement problem." In his talk he will give a simple introduction to what decoherence is and  discuss what has been learned in recent years about how environmental decoherence works in the real world, and discuss the enticing possibility that there may be an "intrinsic decoherence" mechanism in nature, having nothing to do with environmental decoherence, whereby gravitational interactions cause a breakdown of quantum mechanics. If such a mechanism exists it would offer a marriage between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, quite different from the promises held out by string theory. Stamp will finish by discussing possible experimental tests of ideas about gravitational decoherence.