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arXiv:0707.1457 · International Journal of Modern Physics B

VISIBILITY FRINGE REDUCTION DUE TO NOISE-INDUCED EFFECTS: MICROSCOPIC APPROACH TO INTERFERENCE EXPERIMENTS

PAULA I. VILLAR, FERNANDO C. LOMBARDO

Published Oct 30, 2007• 3 citations
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Abstract

Decoherence is the main process behind the quantum to classical transition. It is a purely quantum mechanical effect by which the system loses its ability to exhibit coherent behavior. The recent experimental observation of diffraction and interference patterns for large molecules raises some interesting questions. In this context, we identify possible agents of decoherence to take into account when modeling these experiments, and study their visible (or not) effects on the interference pattern. We thereby present an analysis of matter wave interferometry in the presence of a dynamic quantum environment, and study how much the visibility fringe is reduced and in which timescale the decoherence effects destroy the interference of massive objects. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental data reported on fullerenes and cold neutrons.

DOI
10.1142/s021797920703806x

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Decoherence is the main process behind the quantum to classical transition. It is a purely quantum mechanical effect by which the system loses its ability to exhibit coherent behavior. The recent experimental observation of diffraction and interference patterns for large molecules raises some interesting questions. In this context, we identify possible agents of decoherence to take into account when modeling these experiments, and study their visible (or not) effects on the interference pattern. We thereby present an analysis of matter wave interferometry in the presence of a dynamic quantum environment, and study how much the visibility fringe is reduced and in which timescale the decoherence effects destroy the interference of massive objects. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental data reported on fullerenes and cold neutrons.
Decoherence is the main process behind the quantum to classical transition. It is a purely quantum mechanical effect by which the system loses its ability to exhibit coherent behavior. The recent experimental observation of diffraction and interference patterns for large molecules raises some interesting questions. In this context, we identify possible agents of decoherence to take into account when modeling these experiments, and study their visible (or not) effects on the interference pattern. We thereby present an analysis of matter wave interferometry in the presence of a dynamic quantum environment, and study how much the visibility fringe is reduced and in which timescale the decoherence effects destroy the interference of massive objects. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental data reported on fullerenes and cold neutrons. © World Scientific Publishing Company.
Matter-wave interferometry has been largely studied in the last few years. Usually, the main problem in the analysis of the diffraction experiments is to establish the causes for the loss of coherence observed in the interference pattern. In this work, we use different type of environmental couplings to model a two slit diffraction experiment with massive particles. For each model, we study the effects of decoherence on the interference pattern and define a visibility function that measures the loss of contrast of the interference fringes on a distant screen. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental reported data on massive particles C 70 .
We review different attempts to show the decoherence process in double-slit-like experiments both for charged particles (electrons) and for neutral particles with permanent dipole moments. Interference is studied when electrons or atomic systems are coupled to classical or quantum electromagnetic fields. The interaction between the particles and time-dependent fields induces a time-varying Aharonov phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppression of fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitable experimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be almost as large as the corresponding one for coherent electrons and therefore can be observed. We analyse different trajectories in order to show the dependence of the decoherence factor on the velocity of the particles.