1997/12/31 by S. Bose, Sougato Bose, K. Jacobs +2 · 7 citations
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Biofield Effects and Biophysics #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.59.3204
published as Phys.Rev.A59:3204,1999 · Much expanded version, macroscopic mirror masses, to appear in Phys. Rev. A (tent: May 99)
arxiv created 1999/04/18 · openalex publication_date 1999/05/01 · arxiv updated 2011/08/04 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We propose a quantum optical version of Schrödinger's famous gedanken experiment in which the state of a microscopic system (a cavity field) becomes entangled with and disentangled from the state of a massive object (a movable mirror). Despite the fact that a mixture of Schrödinger cat states is produced during the evolution (due to the fact that the macroscopic mirror starts off in a thermal state), this setup allows us to systematically probe the rules by which a superposition of spatially separated states of a macroscopic object decoheres. The parameter regime required to test environment-induced decoherence models is found to be close to those currently realizable, while that required to detect gravitationally induced collapse is well beyond current technology.