The birth of objective properties from the subjective quantum world has been one of the key questions in the quantum-to-classical transition. Based on recent results in the field, we study it in a quantum mechanical model of a boson-boson interaction—quantum Brownian motion. Using various simplifications, we prove a formation for thermal environments of, so called, spectrum broadcast structures, responsible for perceived objectivity. In the quantum measurement limit we prove that this structure is always formed, providing the characteristic timescales. Including self-Hamiltonians of the environment, we show the exponential scaling of the effect with the size of the environment. Finally, in the full model we numerically study the influence of squeezing in the initial state of the environment, showing broader regions of formation than for non-squeezed thermal states.
Abstract Spectrum broadcast structures are a new and fresh concept in the quantum-to-classical transition, introduced recently in the context of decoherence and the appearance of objective features in quantum mechanics. These are specific quantum state structures, responsible for the objectivization of the decohered state of a system. Recently, they have been demonstrated by means of the well-known quantum Brownian motion model of the recoilless limit (infinitely massive central system), as the principal interest lies in information transfer from the system to the environment. However, a final analysis relied on numerics. Here, after a presentation of the main concepts, we perform analytical studies of the model, showing the timescales and the efficiency of the spectrum broadcast structure formation. We consider a somewhat simplified environment, being random with a uniform distribution of frequencies.
Classical objectivity as a property of quantum states —a view proposed to explain the observer-independent character of our world from quantum theory, is an important step in bridging the quantum-classical gap. It was recently derived in terms of spectrum broadcast structures for small objects embedded in noisy photon-like environments. However, two fundamental problems have arisen: a description of objective motion and applicability to other types of environments. Here we derive an example of objective states of motion in quantum mechanics by showing the formation of dynamical spectrum broadcast structures in the celebrated, realistic model of decoherence —Quantum Brownian Motion. We do it for realistic, thermal environments and show their noise-robustness. This opens a potentially new method of studying the quantum-to-classical transition.
We investigate quantum objectivity in the boson-spin model, where a central harmonic oscillator interacts with a thermal bath of spin-
21 systems. We analyze how information about a continuous position variable can be encoded into discrete, finite-dimensional environments. More precisely, we study conditions under which the so-called spectrum broadcast structures can be formed in the model. These are multipartite quantum-state structures, representing a mode-refined form of decoherence. Working in the recoil-less limit, we use the Floquet theory to show that despite its apparent simplicity, the model has a rich structure with different regimes, depending on the motion of the central system. In one of them, the faithful encoding of the position and hence objectivity are impossible irrespectively of the resources used. In another, large enough collections of spins will faithfully encode the position information. We derive the characteristic length scales, corresponding to decoherence and precision of the encoding.
Building upon the work of Hu, Paz, and Zhang [1,2] on open quantum systems we consider the quantum Brownian motion (QBM) model with one oscillator (position variable
x) as the system, {\it nonlinearly} coupled to an environment of
N harmonic oscillators (with mass
mn, natural frequency
ωn, position
qn and momentum
pn variables) in the form
∑n(vn1(x)qnk+vn2(x)pnl) where
k,l are integers (the present work only considers the
k=l=2 cases). The vertex functions $v_{n1}, v_{n2} $ are of the form
vn1=λCn1f(x),vn2(x)=−λCn2mn−2ωn−2f(x) where
Cn1,2 are the coupling constants with the
nth oscillator,
f(x) is any arbitrary function of
x, and
λ is a dimensionless constant. Employing the closed-time-path formalism the influence action
SIF is calculated using a perturbative expansion in
λ. It is possible to identify the terms in
SIF quadratic or higher in
Δ(s)≡f(x+(s))−f(x−(s)) to constitute the noise kernel, while terms linear in
Δ to that of the dissipation kernel. The non-Gaussian noise kernel gives rise to non-zero three-point correlation function of the corresponding stochastic force. The pathway presented here should be useful for the exploration of \textit{non-Gaussian properties of systems nonlinearly coupled with their environments}; examples in early universe cosmology and in quantum optomechanics (QOM) are mentioned. A modified fluctuation-dissipation relation (FDR) is also established, which ensures the consistency of the model and the accuracy of results even at higher perturbative orders. Another result of significance is the derivation of a nonlinear Langevin equation which is expected to be useful for many open quantum system applications.
This article is a mathematical analysis of the Open Quantum Brownian Motion. This object was introduced by Bernard, Bauer, Benoist and Tilloy as the limit of a family of Open Quantum Random Walks on the discrete line. We prove the convergence for the three possible descriptions of this object: the quantum trajectory satisfying a Belavkin Equation, the unitary evolution on the Fock space satisfying a quantum Langevin Equation, and the Lindbladian evolution. We introduce a very general framework for the continual measurement of non-demolition observables, which is applied to the measurement of the position of the Open Quantum Brownian Motion, and we probe some questions related to the convergence of processes in this context.