Time Evolution of Harmonic Oscillator Thermal Momentum Superposition States
Quantum Physics
2011-09-12 v1
Abstract
The time evolution of thermal states of a mirror released from a tight harmonic trap is studied. After the release no dissipation is assumed to be present and the mirror is, after a time delay, kicked into a momentum superposition state. The thermal character of the initial state washes out the telltale interference patterns of the superposition but no loss of coherence is found. This investigation resolves a controversy about decoherence--without--dissipation and shows that entrained measurements can be surprisingly insensitive to temperature effects.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1109.1818,
title = {Time Evolution of Harmonic Oscillator Thermal Momentum Superposition States},
author = {Ole Steuernagel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.1818},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
6 pages 4 figures