States, Symmetries and Superselection

Details States, Symmetries and Superselection States, Symmetries and Superselection

1999-06-28

arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9906108v1

Lect.Notes Phys. 538 (2000) 87-100

Physics

Quantum Physics

14 pages, LaTeX2e, Springer-Macro cl2emult.cls. To appear in: "Decoherence: Theoretical, Experimental, and Conceptual Problems

Scientific paper

The process of dynamical decoherence may cause apparent superselection rules, which are sometimes called `environmentally induced' or `soft'. A natural question is whether such dynamical processes are eventually also responsible for at least some of the superselection rules which are usually presented as fundamentally rooted in the kinematical structure of the theory (so called `hard' superselection rules). With this question in mind, I re-investigate two well known examples where superselection rules are usually argued to rigorously exist within the given mathematical framework. These are (1) the Bargmann superselection rule for the total mass in Galilei invariant quantum mechanics and (2) the charge superselection rule in quantum electrodynamics. I argue that, for various reasons, the kinematical arguments usually given are not physically convincing unless they are based on an underlying dynamical process.

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