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Indirect Measurements of a Harmonic Oscillator

Mathematical Physics 2019-08-28 v2 math.MP Quantum Physics

Abstract

The measurement of a quantum system becomes itself a quantum-mechanical process once the apparatus is internalized. That shift of perspective may result in different physical predictions for a variety of reasons. We present a model describing both system and apparatus and consisting of a harmonic oscillator coupled to a field. The equation of motion is a quantum stochastic differential equation. By solving it we establish the conditions ensuring that the two perspectives are compatible, in that the apparatus indeed measures the observable it is ideally supposed to.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.00516,
  title  = {Indirect Measurements of a Harmonic Oscillator},
  author = {Martin Fraas and Gian Michele Graf and Lisa Hänggli},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.00516},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

37 pages, 2 figures