Journal article 801 views 135 downloads
Unravelling cosmological perturbations
Physics Letters B, Volume: 785, Pages: 254 - 261
Swansea University Author:
Timothy Hollowood
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Open Access funded by SCOAP³ - Sponsoring Consortium for Open Access Publishing in Particle Physics. Under a Creative Commons license.
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DOI (Published version): 10.1016/j.physletb.2018.08.073
Abstract
We explain in detail the quantum-to-classical transition for the cosmological perturbations using only the standard rules of quantum mechanics: the Schrodinger equation and Born's rule applied to a subsystem.We show that the conditioned, i.e. intrinsic, pure state of the perturbations, is drive...
| Published in: | Physics Letters B |
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| ISSN: | 03702693 |
| Published: |
2018
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| Online Access: |
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa43856 |
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| Abstract: |
We explain in detail the quantum-to-classical transition for the cosmological perturbations using only the standard rules of quantum mechanics: the Schrodinger equation and Born's rule applied to a subsystem.We show that the conditioned, i.e. intrinsic, pure state of the perturbations, is driven by the interactions with a generic environment, to become increasingly localized in field space as a mode exists the horizon during inflation. With a favourable coupling to the environment, the conditioned state of the perturbations becomes highly localized in field space due to the expansion of spacetime by a factor of roughly exp(-c N), where N ~ 50 and c is a model dependent number of order 1. Effectively the state rapidly becomes specified completely by a point in phase space and an effective, classical, stochastic process emerges described by a classical Langevin equation. The statistics of the stochastic process is described by the solution of the master equation that describes the perturbations coupled to the environment. |
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| College: |
Faculty of Science and Engineering |
| Start Page: |
254 |
| End Page: |
261 |