Decoherence induced by a fluctuating Aharonov-Casher phase

Abstract

Dipoles interference is studied when atomic systems are coupled to classical electromagnetic fields. The interaction between the dipoles and the classical fields induces a time-varying Aharonov-Casher phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppression of fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitable experimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be observable and almost as large as the corresponding one for coherent electrons. We analyze different trajectories in order to show the dependence of the decoherence factor with the velocity of the particles.

13 pages, 3 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev. A

References in corpus (4)

• Decoherence and recoherence from vacuum fluctuations near a conducting plate
• External Time-Varying Fields and Electron Coherence
• Entanglement of distant electron interference experiments
• Correlations in interfering electrons irradiated by nonclassical microwaves

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• Recoherence by Squeezed States in Electron Interferometry
• Decoherence and Recoherence in Model Quantum Systems
• Decoherence induced by Smith-Purcell radiation
• Visibility Fringe Reduction Due to Noise-Induced Effects: Microscopic Approach to Interference Experiments
• Decoherence in a Two Slit Diffraction Experiment with Massive Particles