Physical Review Letters

Coupling-Induced Bipartite Pointer States in Arrays of Electron Billiards: Quantum Darwinism in Action?

Roland Brunner, Richard Akis, David K. Ferry, Friedl Kuchar, R. Meisels

Published Jul 10, 2008• 39 citations

Abstract

We discuss a quantum system coupled to the environment, composed of an open array of billiards (dots) in series. Beside pointer states occurring in individual dots, we observe sets of robust states which arise only in the array. We define these new states as bipartite pointer states, since they cannot be described in terms of simple linear combinations of robust single-dot states. The classical existence of bipartite pointer states is confirmed by comparing the quantum-mechanical and classical results. The ability of the robust states to create "offspring" indicates that quantum Darwinism is in action.

DOI: 10.1103/physrevlett.101.024102

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