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Phys. Rev. D 42, 2566–2576 (1990)

Classical limit in quantum cosmology: Quantum mechanics and the Wigner function

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Salman Habib
Department of Physics, The University of British Columbia, 6224 Agriculture Road, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 2A6

Received 17 April 1990; published in the issue dated 15 October 1990

We study the classical limit of quantum mechanics as applied to quantum cosmology. Conventional wisdom regards the peaking of the Wigner function of the Universe around a classical trajectory as being a quantum prediction of that trajectory. We show that, with quantum interference correctly taken into account, the hoped for "classical correlation" does not exist. There are, therefore, serious difficulties with the notion that a pure quantum state has a classical limit relevant to the description of our world. Some form of quantum decoherence appears necessary for a strict classical limit to exist. This alternative is briefly discussed.

© 1990 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.42.2566
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.42.2566
PACS: