Hannover 2010 – scientific programme

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SYDC: Symposium Decoherence in the light of modern experiments

SYDC 1: Decoherence in the Light of Modern Experiments I

SYDC 1.3: Invited Talk

Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 15:00–15:30, E 415

Decoherence phenomena in molecular systems: Localization of matter waves & stabilization of chiral configuration states — •Klaus Hornberger — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany

Molecules are ideally suited to study the physics of the quantum-to-classical transition. It is fairly easy to isolate them well enough from their surroundings to render quantum effects observable; at the same time, by increasing the number of constituents and thus the complexity of the considered species, one can approach the generic behavior of mesoscopic objects. The talk will discuss decoherence phenomena in molecular systems by first reviewing interference experiments where the change from a delocalized molecular matter wave to a localized behavior due to endogenous heat radiation was observed in agreement with a microscopically realistic model [1]. A laser grating based interferometer will also be described where decoherence by photon absorption cannot be avoided [2]. In the second part, I will discuss how decoherence due to collisions with an achiral background gas can explain the distinction and stabilization of chiral molecular configurations states [3].

[1] L. Hackermüller et al., Nature 427, 711 (2004)

[2] S. Gerlich, et al., Nature Physics 3, 711 (2007)

[3] J. Trost and K. Hornberger, Phys. Rev. Lett 103, 023202 (2009)