Theory of decoherence due to scattering events and Lévy processes.
A general connection between the characteristic function of a Lévy process and loss of coherence of the statistical operator describing the center of mass degrees of freedom of a quantum system interacting through momentum transfer events with an environment is established. The relationship with microphysical models and recent experiments is considered, focusing on the recently observed transition between a dynamics described by a compound Poisson process and a Gaussian process.
Vacchini
Bassano
B
Dipartimento di Fisica dell'Università di Milano and INFN, Sezione di Milano, Via Celoria 16, I-20133, Milan, Italy.