interaction between the atom/field states and the detector states (i.e. decoherence) starts at the time c/r and continues on
Depends on your framework, but it will actually start even earlier than that in a general QFT. The expectation will be non-zero for all times t. I suppose the physical interpretation is something like a local-fluctuation trips the detector.
Of course, commutators will be non-zero as locality requires.
Depends on your framework, but it will actually start even earlier than that in a general QFT. The expectation will be non-zero for all times t. I suppose the physical interpretation is something like a local-fluctuation trips the detector.
Of course, commutators will be non-zero as locality requires.
Right, good point. Still, there are rarely just a few distinct branches in almost any measurement process, it’s a continuum of states, isn’t it?