CONSERVATION-LAWS IN THE QUANTUM-MECHANICS OF CLOSED SYSTEMS

We investigate conservation laws in the quantum mechanics of closed systems and begin by reviewing an argument that exact decoherence implies the exact conservation of quantities that commute with the Hamiltonian. However, we also show that decoherence limits the alternatives that can be included in sets of histories that assess the conservation of these quantities. In the case of charge and energy, these limitations would be severe were these quantities not coupled to a gauge field. However, for the realistic cases of electric charge coupled to the electromagnetic field and mass coupled to spacetime curvature, we show that when alternative values of charge and mass decohere they always decohere exactly and are exactly conserved. Further, while decohering histories that describe possible changes in time of the total charge and mass are also subject to the limitations mentioned above, we show that these do not, in fact, restrict physical alternatives and are therefore not really limitations at all. © 1995 The American Physical Society.