Decoherence of Schrödinger cat states in light of wave/particle duality
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arXiv
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| _version_ | 1866915737155665920 |
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| author | Mavrogordatos, Th. K. |
| author_facet | Mavrogordatos, Th. K. |
| contents | We challenge the standard picture of decohering Schrödinger cat states as an ensemble average obeying a Lindblad master equation, brought about locally from an irreversible interaction with an environment. We generate self-consistent collections of pure system states correlated with specific environmental records, corresponding to the function of the wave-particle correlator first introduced in Carmichael et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 1855 (2000)]. In the spirit of Carmichael et al. [Coherent States: Past, Present and Future, pp. 75-91, World Scientific (1994)], we find that the complementary unravelings evince a pronounced disparity when the ``position'' and ``momentum'' of the damped cavity mode - an explicitly open quantum system - are measured. Intensity-field correlations may largely deviate from a monotonic decay, while Wigner functions of the cavity state display contrasting manifestations of quantum interference when conditioned on photon counts sampling a continuous photocurrent. In turn, the conditional photodetection events mark the contextual diffusion of both the net charge generated at the homodyne detector, and the electromagnetic field amplitude in the resonator. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_12328 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Decoherence of Schrödinger cat states in light of wave/particle duality Mavrogordatos, Th. K. Quantum Physics Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Optics We challenge the standard picture of decohering Schrödinger cat states as an ensemble average obeying a Lindblad master equation, brought about locally from an irreversible interaction with an environment. We generate self-consistent collections of pure system states correlated with specific environmental records, corresponding to the function of the wave-particle correlator first introduced in Carmichael et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 1855 (2000)]. In the spirit of Carmichael et al. [Coherent States: Past, Present and Future, pp. 75-91, World Scientific (1994)], we find that the complementary unravelings evince a pronounced disparity when the ``position'' and ``momentum'' of the damped cavity mode - an explicitly open quantum system - are measured. Intensity-field correlations may largely deviate from a monotonic decay, while Wigner functions of the cavity state display contrasting manifestations of quantum interference when conditioned on photon counts sampling a continuous photocurrent. In turn, the conditional photodetection events mark the contextual diffusion of both the net charge generated at the homodyne detector, and the electromagnetic field amplitude in the resonator. |
| title | Decoherence of Schrödinger cat states in light of wave/particle duality |
| topic | Quantum Physics Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics Optics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.12328 |