Schrödinger’s Cat States

Krzysztof Wódkiewicz

The nonlocality of the Schrödinger cat is established. A correlation measurement that exhibits quantum interference in the form of the Wigner function of the cat state is introduced. The relation of this correlation to quantum interference in phase space and the nonlocal character of the Schrödinger cat are discussed. It is shown that the Schrödinger cat correlation function leads to violation of the Bell inequality for macroscopically distinguishable states of the cat.

Demin Yao

The generation of Schr\"odinger-cat-like states for quantum fundamental solitons in optical fibers is investigated. It is shown that the generation is possible at proper times in the dynamical evolution of an appropriately chosen initial state. Such a Schr\"odinger-cat-like state has a minimum number of components, three, and the superposition coefficients of components are all real. Mean values of the field and the intensity operators are calculated and the associated quantum interference behavior characteristic of quantum coherent superposition in the Schr\"odinger-cat-like states is revealed. The effect of dissipation on the Schr\"odinger-cat-like states is analyzed using a beam splitter. The severity with which losses tend to destroy interference between components of the input Schr\"odinger-cat-like state is noted.

Jean-Louis Basdevant, Jean Dalibard

Derek Steinberg

József Janszky, Aleksandr V Vinogradov, T. Kobayashi +1 more

The optical Schr\"odinger-cat states are simple realizations of quantum states having nonclassical features. It is shown that vibrational analogs of such states can be realized in an experiment of double-pulse or chirped-pulse excitation of vibronic transitions. The possibility of conversion of vibrational Schr\"odinger-cat states to chemical-cat states is discussed.