Faint trace of a particle in a noisy Vaidman three-path interferometer
Jerzy Dajka
Abstract
We study weak traces of particle passing Vaidman's nested Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We investigate an effect of decoherence caused by an environment coupled to internal degree of freedom (a spin) of a travelling particle. We consider two models: pure decoherence leading to exact results and weak coupling Davies approximation allowing to include dissipative effects. We show that potentially anomalous discontinuity of particle paths survives an effect of decoherence unless it affects internal part of the nested interferometer.
Topics & Concepts
Quantum decoherenceInterferometryPhysicsDissipative systemTRACE (psycholinguistics)Discontinuity (linguistics)Particle (ecology)Mach–Zehnder interferometerQuantum mechanicsStatistical physicsClassical mechanicsMathematicsMathematical analysisBiologyQuantumEcologyLinguisticsPhilosophyQuantum Information and CryptographyQuantum Mechanics and ApplicationsCold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates