dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaScale decoherence in inhomogeneous potentials
| Authors | David A. Meyer |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/9805039 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9805039 |
Abstract
Finite precision measurement factors the Hilbert space of a quantum system into a tensor product $H_{coarse} \otimes H_{fine}$. This is mathematically equivalent to the partition into system and environment which forms the arena for decoherence, so we describe the consequences of the inaccessibility of $H_{fine}$ as scale decoherence. Considering the experimentally important case of a harmonic oscillator potential as well as a periodic piecewise constant potential, we show that scale decoherence occurs for inhomogeneous potentials and may explain part of the decoherence observed in recent and proposed experiments on mesoscopic superpositions of quantum states.
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"abstract": "Finite precision measurement factors the Hilbert space of a quantum system\ninto a tensor product $H_{coarse} \\otimes H_{fine}$. This is mathematically\nequivalent to the partition into system and environment which forms the arena\nfor decoherence, so we describe the consequences of the inaccessibility of\n$H_{fine}$ as scale decoherence. Considering the experimentally important case\nof a harmonic oscillator potential as well as a periodic piecewise constant\npotential, we show that scale decoherence occurs for inhomogeneous potentials\nand may explain part of the decoherence observed in recent and proposed\nexperiments on mesoscopic superpositions of quantum states.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/9805039",
"authors": [
"David A. Meyer"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph"
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"title": "Scale decoherence in inhomogeneous potentials",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9805039"
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