Influence functionals, decoherence and conformally coupled scalars

Some of the simplest modifications to general relativity involve the coupling of additional scalar fields to the scalar curvature. By making a Weyl rescaling of the metric, these theories can be mapped to Einstein gravity with the additional scalar fields instead being coupled universally to matter. The resulting couplings to matter give rise to scalar fifth forces, which can evade the stringent constraints from local tests of gravity by means of so-called screening mechanisms. In this talk, we derive evolution equations for the matrix elements of the reduced density operator of a toy matter sector by means of the Feynman-Vernon influence functional. In particular, we employ a novel approach akin to the LSZ reduction more familiar to scattering-matrix theory. The resulting equations allow the analysis, for instance, of decoherence induced in atom-interferometry experiments by these classes of modified theories of gravity.

Comment: 9 pages, JPCS format. Contribution to the proceedings of the 9th International Workshop DICE2018 Spacetime - Matter - Quantum Mechanics, 17-21 September 2018, Castiglioncello, Italy. Presented by P. Millington. This revision includes minor corrections, additional clarifications and updated references relative to the version of record