How do I decide that a particle is isolated?

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The discussion centers on determining when a particle can be treated as an isolated quantum system, specifically within the framework of quantum mechanics. It emphasizes that all particles have interacted with others at some point, raising the question of isolation criteria. Key factors include the absence of decoherence within the experimental timescale and the conditions under which systems, such as electron pairs from radioactive decay or photon pairs from radiative cascades, can be considered bipartite. The treatment of these systems relies on the mathematical formalism of Hilbert spaces and tensor products.

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frogeraie
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Every particle in the universe has been, at a given point of its history, interacting with other particles. So, how is it possible to decide whether a given particle can be treated as an isolated quantum system the states of which are vectors of a single Hilbert space? Altenatively, what conditions will force us to consider electron pairs emitted by radioactive decay or photon pairs resulting of radiative cascade, as a single system describe by a tensor product of two Hilbert spaces?
What is the criteria to decide whether a system is bipartite?
 
Physics news on Phys.org
For the evolution of a particle or a system of particles, you can ignore the rest of the world if there is no decoherence happening within the timescale of your experiment.
 

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