Linearly Positive Histories: Probabilities for a Robust Family of Sequences of Quantum Events

Abstract

Nonnegative probabilities that obey the sum rules may be assigned to a much wider family of sets of histories than decohering histories. The resulting {\it linearly positive histories} avoid the highly restrictive decoherence conditions and yet give the same probabilities when those conditions apply. Thus linearly positive histories are a broad extension of decohering histories. Moreover, the resulting theory is manifestly time-reversal invariant.

8 pages, LaTeX. Shortened slightly to permit publication in Phys. Rev. Lett. A paragraph after Eq. (21) was expanded