Decoherence and Colour Confinement in Quantum Chromodynamics

Abstract

It is shown that the phenomenon of quantum decoherence, that arises during the interaction of a quantum system with the environment and plays a key role in the process of quantum measurement (as applied in quantum optics and quantum information theory), is also an important element of the strong interaction between quarks and gluons (which is described by the quantum chromodynamics). The decoherence of quark colour states during the interaction with the stochastic vacuum of quantum chromodynamics, treated as an environment, serves as an explanation to the confinement phenomenon – one of the most fundamental properties of strong interactions, – which manifests in the absence of free quarks and gluons. Density matrices, quantum purity, quantum information measure, quantum fidelity and von Neumann entropy are calculated for various colour objects in the stochastic vacuum of quantum chromodynamics. It is shown that in the asymptotics of large space-time intervals (the confinement region) the interaction of quarks with the stochastic vacuum effectively leads to the emergence of fully mixed (white) quark colour states. The application of certain quantum information statements (no-cloning and no-hiding theorems) to the issue of quark confinement is discussed.