Chaos, Coherence and the Double-Slit Experiment

Abstract

We investigate the influence that classical dynamics has on interference patterns in coherence experiments. We calculate the time-integrated probability current through an absorbing screen and the conductance through a doubly connected ballistic cavity, both in an Aharonov-Bohm geometry with forward scattering only. We show how interference fringes in the probability current generically disappear in the case of a chaotic system with small openings, and how they may persist in the case of an integrable cavity. Simultaneously, the typical, sample dependent amplitude of the flux-sensitive part $g(\varphi )$ of the conductance survives in all cases, and becomes universal in the case of a chaotic cavity. In presence of dephasing by fluctuations of the electric potential in one arm of the Aharonov-Bohm loop, we find an exponential damping of the flux-dependent part of the conductance, $g(\varphi )\propto \exp [-{\tau }_{\mathrm{L}}/{\tau }_{\varphi }]$, in term of the traversal time ${\tau }_{\mathrm{L}}$ through the arm and the dephasing time ${\tau }_{\varphi }$. This extends previous works on dephasing in ballistic systems to the case of many conducting channels.

8 pages, 4 figures in .eps format; Final version, to appear in Physical Review E

References in corpus (7)

• Semiclassical Theory of Chaotic Quantum Transport
• Mesoscopic decoherence in Aharonov-Bohm rings
• Charge fluctuation induced dephasing in a gated mesoscopic interferometer
• Quantum chaos and the double-slit experiment
• Interaction-induced dephasing of Aharonov-Bohm oscillations
• Probe-Configuration-Dependent Decoherence in an Aharonov-Bohm Ring
• Dephasing due to electron-electron interaction in a diffusive ring

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Dephasing in quantum chaotic transport: a semiclassical approach
• Chaotic dephasing in a double-slit scattering experiment