Comment on "Do Bloch waves interfere with one another?"

Abstract

We point out that argumentation presented in [Phys. Lett. A 417, 127699 (2021)], leading to the conclusion that in periodic systems there is a superselection principle forbidding two different Bloch states to form a coherent superposition of a fixed phase, is unjustified and false. As an example, we show that the operator projecting to the selected Wannier state can be experimentally utilized to determine relative phase between superposed Bloch states. In this way we argue that, in fact, the non-existence of the aforementioned superselection principle is manifested always when localized measurements are performed, for example in state-of-the-art experiments with ultracold atoms confined in optical lattices.

arXiv commentAuthor's final version, accepted for publication

References in corpus (6)

• Reference frames, superselection rules, and quantum information
• Single-atom imaging of fermions in a quantum-gas microscope
• A Quantum Gas Microscope for Fermionic Atoms
• Site-resolved Imaging of Fermionic Lithium-6 in an Optical Lattice
• Ramsey interference with single photons
• Do Bloch waves interfere with one another ?

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Response to the comment on "Do Bloch waves interfere with one another ?"