Decoherence and Localization in Quantum Two-Level Systems

Abstract

We study and compare the decoherent histories approach, the environment-induced decoherence and the localization properties of thesolutions to the stochastic Schrödinger equation in quantum jump simulationand quantum state diffusion approaches, for a quantum two-level system model. We show, in particular, that there is a close connection between the decoherent histories and the quantum jump simulation, complementing a connection with the quantum state diffusion approach noted earlier by Diósi, Gisin, Halliwell and Percival. In the case of the decoherent histories analysis, the degree of approximate decoherence is discussed in detail.

30 pages, revtex, no figures