CONTINUOUS MEASUREMENT AND LOCALIZATION IN THE UNRUH EFFECT

We consider the influence of continuous decoherence on the excitation of an accelerated detector, an effect which must be taken into account in physically realistic realizations of the Unruh effect. As a model we use a quantum two-level system (as the detector) coupled to a massless scalar quantum field. This composite quantum system is treated as an open system which interacts with an environment so that continuous decoherence results. We develop a formalism that models the interaction with an environment approximately as a continuous measurement, represented by a sequence of state reductions. This leads to a description in terms of histories of the detector. Evolution operators corresponding to different histories of the detector can then be considered separately. The density matrix for the mixed state which results after a sequence of nonselective measurements is worked out explicitly. Based on the same formalism, it is also possible to correlate the time of the transition of the detector with the trajectories of the Minkowski particles which are emitted during this process, thus localizing the space-time region where they are created. © 1995 The American Physical Society.