The decoherence of the quantum excitation of even/odd coherent states in a photon-loss channel

Abstract

In this paper, the decoherence of the quantum excitation (the photon-added case) of even/odd coherent states, in a photon-loss channel is studied via the evaluation of the negative part of the Wigner quasi-distribution function in terms of the rescaled time ( ). We first obtain the explicit form of the time-dependent Wigner functions of the states considered, for arbitrary values of the photon excitations. To achieve this purpose, an equivalent Fokker–Planck-like equation which describes the time evolution of the Wigner function in the framework of the standard master equation of the density matrix is used. Then, by analyzing the time variation of the corresponding Wigner functions, the loss of the nonclassicality behavior and, hence, the decay of the negative part of the Wigner functions as a result of decoherence are clearly shown. In particular, we derive the threshold value of the rescaled time for single-photon-added even and odd coherent states; through this it is observed that the associated Wigner functions become positive whenever the rescaled time exceeds that value, i.e., the decoherence has become complete. By virtue of numerical calculations, it is also illustrated that the negative volume of the corresponding Wigner functions decreases with increasing time. In addition, the states with larger values of the excitation number m generally (but not absolutely always) possess smaller values of the rescaled threshold time.