We study the decoherence of superpositions of displaced quantum states of the form (where | g ⟩ is an arbitrary 'fiducial' state and is the usual displacement operator) within the framework of the standard master equation for a quantum damped or amplified harmonic oscillator interacting with a phase-insensitive (thermal) reservoir. We compare two simple measures of the degree of decoherence: the quantum purity and the height of the central interference peak of the Wigner function. We show that for N > 2 'mesoscopic' components of the superposition, the decoherence process cannot be characterized by a single decoherence time. Therefore, we distinguish the 'initial decoherence time' and 'final decoherence time' and study their dependence on the parameters α k and N . We obtain approximate formulae for an arbitrary state | g ⟩ and explicit exact expressions in the special case of | g ⟩ = | m ⟩, i.e., for (symmetrical) superpositions of displaced Fock states of occupation number m . We show that the superposition with a large number of components N and rich 'internal structure' ( m ∼ |α| 2 ) can be more robust against decoherence than simple superpositions of two coherent states (with m = 0), even if the initial decoherence times coincide. Also, we show how initial pure quantum superpositions are transformed into highly mixed and totally classical superpositions in the case of a phase-insensitive amplifier.
We study the decoherence of superpositions of displaced quantum states of the form (where | g ⟩ is an arbitrary 'fiducial' state and is the usual displacement operator) within the framework of the standard master equation for a quantum damped or amplified harmonic oscillator interacting with a phase-insensitive (thermal) reservoir. We compare two simple measures of the degree of decoherence: the quantum purity and the height of the central interference peak of the Wigner function. We show that for N > 2 'mesoscopic' components of the superposition, the decoherence process cannot be characterized by a single decoherence time. Therefore, we distinguish the 'initial decoherence time' and 'final decoherence time' and study their dependence on the parameters α k and N . We obtain approximate formulae for an arbitrary state | g ⟩ and explicit exact expressions in the special case of | g ⟩ = | m ⟩, i.e., for (symmetrical) superpositions of displaced Fock states of occupation number m . We show that the superposition with a large number of components N and rich 'internal structure' ( m ∼ |α| 2 ) can be more robust against decoherence than simple superpositions of two coherent states (with m = 0), even if the initial decoherence times coincide. Also, we show how initial pure quantum superpositions are transformed into highly mixed and totally classical superpositions in the case of a phase-insensitive amplifier.
We study the decoherence of even and odd superpositions of displaced number states in the frameworks of the standard master equation, describing phase insensitive attenuators and amplifiers. We compare different possible definitions of the ‘decoherence time’ and show that the frequently used approaches based on the time derivatives of some quantities (such as the ‘quantum purity’), taken at the initial moment, are not quite satisfactory for quantum states characterized by several parameters, due to the absence of the scaling laws. Defining the conditional decoherence time as the time necessary for diminishing the interference peak of the Wigner function to the given relative level, we study its dependence on the initial distance between peaks |α|, excitation number m and parameters of the reservoir. We show that highly excited states with can be more robust against decoherence than the coherent superpositions with m = 0.
We study the evolution of Wigner functions of arbitrary initial quantum states of field modes in a one-dimensional ideal cavity, whose boundary performs small harmonic oscillations at the frequency ω W = p ω 1 (where ω 1 is the fundamental field eigenfrequency). Special attention is paid to the case of initial even and odd coherent states, which serve as models of the 'Schrödinger cat states'. We show that the strong intermode interaction (due to the Doppler upshift of the fields reflected from the oscillating mirror) results in the decoherence of initial quantum superpositions in selected modes, even in the absence of any external 'environment'. Different quantitative measures of decoherence are discussed. The analytical solutions obtained show that any initial state of the field goes asymptotically to a highly mixed and moderately squeezed state in the 'principal resonance case' p = 2 and to the vacuum state in the 'semiresonance case' p = 1. It is shown that the decoherence process has several stages. In the first one, the interference between the components of the initial superposition is rapidly destroyed during the time of the primary decoherence , which is inversely proportional to the first power of the initial distance between the components, as opposed to the second power in the case of usual dissipative reservoirs. However, some weak traces of coherence (quantumness of states), such as the regions of negativity of the Wigner function, survive for much longer times, which do not depend on the size of the initial superposition.
We introduce the quantitative measures characterizing the rates of decoherence and thermalization of quantum systems. We study the time evolution of these measures in the case of a quantum harmonic oscillator whose relaxation is described in the framework of the standard master equation, for various initial states (coherent, `cat', squeezed and number). We establish the conditions under which the true decoherence measure can be approximated by the linear entropy 1-Tr 2 . We show that at low temperatures and for highly excited initial states the decoherence process consists of three distinct stages with quite different time scales. In particular, the `cat' states preserve 50% of the initial coherence for a long time interval which increases logarithmically with the increase of the initial energy.
Environment-induced destruction of quantum coherence is investigated in a simple model where the system is a harmonic oscillator, the environment is a collection of harmonic oscillators, and the interaction between them is linear in the position coordinate of the system. We study decoherence for initial states consisting of coherent superpositions of two Gaussian wave packets in either position or momentum. A new measure of the effectiveness of decoherence appropriate to the model and choice of initial conditions is proposed. By studying the dependence of the decoherence rate on the location of the initial peaks of the Wigner function, we clarify the sense in which position is a preferred observable even though position eigenstates are not the pointer states of this model. We analyze decoherence in the low-temperature regime and show that the usual "high-temperature" approximation is remarkably accurate in its domain of applicability. We also examine the relationship between the decoherence process and the frequency distribution of the environment oscillators (in particular, we focus attention on a specific "supra-Ohmic" environment). Implications of our results for the quantum to classical transition in various contexts are briefly explored.
Some aspects of quantum damped harmonic oscillator (DHO) obeying a Markovian master equation are considered in the absence of thermal noise. The continuity equation is derived and Bohmian trajectories are constructed. As a solution of the master equation, we take a single coherent state and compute analytically the relative entropy of coherence, [Formula: see text], in the energy, position and momentum bases. Although [Formula: see text] is constant in both the position and the momentum bases, it is a decreasing function of time in the energy basis becoming zero at long times, revealing its role as the preferred basis. Then, quantum coherence is computed for a superposition of two coherent states, a cat state, and also a superposition of two cat states in the energy basis as a function of separation, in the complex plane, between the two superposed states. It is seen that the quantum coherence increases with this separation. Furthermore, quantum coherence of superposition is compared to that of decomposed states in the superposition. Finally, by considering a system of two noninteracting DHOs, the effect of quantum statistics is studied on the coherence of reduced single-particle states, the joint detection probability and the mean square separation of particles. Our computations show that the single-particle coherence for antisymmetric states is always less than that of symmetric ones. Furthermore, boson anti-bunching and fermion bunching is seen in this open system. This behavior of bosons is the matter-wave analogue of photon anti-bunching seen in a modified Hanbury Brown–Twiss (HBT) interferometer.
We investigate the time evolution of the superposition of macroscopically distinct quantum states in a system of two-level atoms interacting with a thermal environment of photon modes. We show that the atomic coherent states are robust against decoherence; therefore, we call their superpositions atomic Schr\"odinger cat states. The initial fast regime of the time evolution is associated with the process of decoherence and it is directed toward the statistical mixture of the constituent coherent states of the original state for most of the initial conditions. However, certain superpositions, called symmetric, exhibit exceptionally slow decoherence. By introducing a new measure, we generalize the usual decoherence scheme regarding the evolution of the state to account also for the symmetric case. To stress the fact that the environment preserves symmetric superpositions much longer than the other ones, we present Wigner function images of the decoherence of a suitably oriented four-component cat state.