Effect of initial correlations on short-time decoherence

2002/08/27 by Eric Lutz, E. Lutz · 19 citations
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Attenuation #Harmonic #Harmonic oscillator #Particle (ecology) #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum decoherence #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #Statistical physics #Superposition principle #Thermal #Thermodynamics #Wave packet #cond-mat.mes-hall

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.67.022109

published in Physical Review A 67(2) (American Physical Society) · 7 pages, 1 figure

arxiv created 2002/08/27 · openalex publication_date 2003/02/25 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We study the effect of initial correlations on the short-time decoherence of a particle linearly coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators. We analytically evaluate the attenuation coefficient of the superposition of two wave packets both for a free and a harmonically bound particle, with and without initial thermal correlations between the particle and the bath. While short-time decoherence appears to be independent of the system in the absence of initial correlations, we find on the contrary that, for initial thermal correlations, decoherence becomes system dependent even for times much shorter than the characteristic time of the system. The temperature behavior of this system dependence is discussed.

Citations

• Information and computation: Classical and quantum aspects
• Pointer basis of quantum apparatus: Into what mixture does the wave packet collapse?
• Environment-induced superselection rules

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