2007/03/19 by R. Kullock, Kullock, R., N. F. Svaiter +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.quant-ph/0703167
openalex publication_date 2007/03/19 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A discussion of the quantum Zeno effect and paradox is given. The quantum Zeno paradox claims that a continuously observed system, prepared in a state which is not an eigenstate of the Hamiltonian operator, never decays. To recover the classical behavior of unstable systems we consider a two-level system interacting with a Bose field, respectively prepared in the excited state and in the Poincare invariant vacuum state. Using time-dependent perturbation theory, we evaluate for a finite time interval the probability of spontaneous decay of the two-level system. Using the standard argument to obtain the quantum Zeno paradox, we consider N measurements where N goes to infinity and we obtain that the non-decay probability law is a pure exponential, therefore recovering the classical behavior.