2012/07/31 by François Impens, Ryan O. Behunin, Claudio Ccapa Ttira +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #cond-mat.quant-gas #cond-mat.stat-mech #physics.atom-ph #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1209/0295-5075/101/60006
published as EPL 101, 60006 (2013) · 5 pages, 1 figure. Final version, published in the Europhysics Letters
openalex publication_date 2013/03/01 · arxiv created 2013/04/03 · arxiv updated 2013/04/05 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
We present an open quantum system theory of atom interferometers evolving in the quantized electromagnetic field bounded by an ideal conductor. Our treatment reveals an unprecedented feature of matter-wave propagation, namely the appearance of a non-local double-path phase coherence. In the standard interpretation of interferometers, one associates well-defined separate phases to individual paths. Our non-local phase coherence is instead associated to pairs of paths. It arises from the coarse-graining over the quantized electromagnetic field and internal atomic degrees of freedom, which play the role of a common reservoir for the pair of paths and lead to a non-Hamiltonian evolution of the atomic waves. We develop a diagrammatic interpretation and estimate the non-local phase for realistic experimental parameters.