Decoherence and Matter Wave Interferometry

Abstract

A two-slit interference of a massive particle in the presence of environment induced decoherence is theoretically analyzed using a fully quantum mechanical calculation. The Markovian Master equation, derived from coupling the particle to a harmonic-oscillator heat bath, is used to obtain exact solutions which show the existence of an interference. Interestingly, decoherence does not affect the pattern, but only leads to a reduction in the fringe visibility.

Sufficiently revised version, to appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. B

References in corpus (2)

• Theory of decoherence in a matter wave Talbot-Lau interferometer
• Thermal limitation of far-field matter-wave interference

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Quantum linear Boltzmann equation
• Contextuality, decoherence and quantum trajectories
• Monitoring Decoherence via Measurement of Quantum Coherence
• On some unexplored decoherence aspects in the Caldeira-Leggett formalism: arrival time distributions, identical particles and diffraction in time
• Testing Gravitational Self-interaction via Matter-Wave Interferometry
• Quantifying Decoherence