Repeatedly readable state, spontaneous collapse, and quantum/classical boundary
Abstract
We propose a model to identify the quantum/classical boundary. The model introduces a spontaneous collapse of state superposition: . Different from other collapse models, the collapsing scale here does not contain a universal parameter, but is specified by the two states and : If each state is {\em in principle} repeatedly readable (typically by a QND measurement), then is the {\em potentially} needed measuring time to discriminate the two states, and the collapse occurs spontaneously {\em without} any actual monitoring. Otherwise, , which means no collapse and everlasting superposition. This happens if one state is not repeatedly readable, or if the two states cannot possibly be discriminated in a particular circumstance (for example in the Rabi oscillation). Detailed analysis shows that for a "trapped Schr{\"o}dinger's cat", the superposition of and is forbidden if , and allowed if , where is the trap separation and is the energy gap, which can be estimated with . The model also constrains a "free Schr{\"o}dinger's cat" to display double-slit interference if , where , is the angle spanned by the two trajectories, and is the slit separation. In contrast, this model sets no limit on the coherent length of massless photon, thus the arm of a Michelson interferometer can be arbitrarily long. The spontaneous collapse which we propose can occur for an isolated system, and parallels the decoherence induced by interaction with environment.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2204.11656,
title = {Repeatedly readable state, spontaneous collapse, and quantum/classical boundary},
author = {Xiao-Fu Peng and Yu-Hang Luo and Jiang Zhu and Bang-Hui Hua and Xue-Nan Chen and Dan-Dan Lian and Zi-Wei Chen and Xiang-Song Chen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2204.11656},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
18 pages, 0 figures