Two Experimental Tests to Distinguish Decoherence from the Slicing Theory of Measurement

Abstract

Here we propose a pair of experiments to distinguish the recently proposed "slicing theory" of quantum measurement, which gives a transient many worlds picture, and decoherence. Since these two theories are essentially "opposites" in their approach and both claim to arise from the many body Schrödinger equation itself, there is no chance of them being equivalent representations of the same reality. It will be explicitly shown that each theory gives very different answers to the questions of back reaction and revival of phase effects after measurement. We suggest that the kinds of isolated systems now possible in optical traps is now sufficient to generate a selective distinction between these two theories. In particular we show that the slicing theory gives examples of interference from "revival of histories" in controlled examples but no back reaction on the measurement devices whereas decoherence gives the opposite.