2000/04/19 by V. V. Dodonov, S. S. Mizrahi, A. L. de Souza Silva +1 · 2 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) #Coherent states #Excited state #Harmonic oscillator #Master equation #Measure (data warehouse) #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum decoherence #Quantum dissipation #Quantum mechanics #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Statistical physics #Thermalisation #Time evolution #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1464-4266/2/3/309
published as J. Opt. B, v.2, no.3, p.271-281 (2000) · 24 pages, LaTex, 8 ps figures, accepted for publication in J. Opt. B
arxiv created 2000/04/19 · openalex publication_date 2000/05/24 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We introduce the quantitative measures characterizing the rates of decoherence and thermalization of quantum systems. We study the time evolution of these measures in the case of a quantum harmonic oscillator whose relaxation is described in the framework of the standard master equation, for various initial states (coherent, `cat', squeezed and number). We establish the conditions under which the true decoherence measure can be approximated by the linear entropy 1-Tr 2 . We show that at low temperatures and for highly excited initial states the decoherence process consists of three distinct stages with quite different time scales. In particular, the `cat' states preserve 50% of the initial coherence for a long time interval which increases logarithmically with the increase of the initial energy.