Slow Decoherence of Superpositions of Macroscopically Distinct States
Quantum Physics
2007-05-23 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
Optics
Abstract
Linear superpositions of macroscopically distinct quantum states (sometimes also called Schr\"odinger cat states) are usually almost immediately reduced to a statistical mixture if exposed to the dephasing influence of a dissipative environment. Couplings to the environment with a certain symmetry can lead to slow decoherence, however. We give specific examples of slowly decohering Schr\"odinger cat states in a realistic quantum optical system and discuss how they might be constructed experimentally.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/9903041,
title = {Slow Decoherence of Superpositions of Macroscopically Distinct States},
author = {Daniel Braun and Petr A. Braun and Fritz Haake},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/9903041},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
8 pages of revtex; to be published in proceedings of the 1998 Bielefeld Conference on 'Decoherence: Theoretical, Experimental, and Conceptual Problems'