  Spacetime foam can be modeled in terms of nonlocal effective interactions in
a classical nonfluctuating background. Then, the density matrix for the
low-energy fields evolves, in the weak-coupling approximation, according to a
master equation that contains a diffusion term. Furthermore, it is argued that
spacetime foam behaves as a quantum thermal field that, apart from inducing
loss of coherence, gives rise to effects such as gravitational Lamb and Stark
shifts as well as quantum damping in the evolution of the low-energy
observables. These effects can be, at least in principle, experimentally
tested.
