Dresden 2011 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 50: Quantum Effects: Entanglement and Decoherence
Q 50.8: Talk
Thursday, March 17, 2011, 12:15–12:30, SCH A01
Collisional decoherence in the non-Markovian regime — •Federico Levi1,2 and Bassano Vacchini1 — 1Università degli Studi di Milano, Dipartimento di Fisica, Via Celoria 16, 20133 Milano, Italy. — 2Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS), Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Albertstr. 19, 79104 Freiburg
The issue of collisional decoherence is addressed theoretically in the framework of the theory of open quantum systems. With reference to the well-known experiments involving mesoscopic particles flying through a two slit interferometer in controlled pressure conditions [1], a test particle drifting through a gas can be described by means of the quantum linear Boltzmann equation [2]. If dissipative effects are neglected in order to focus on the suppression of the contrast of interference fringes generated by the action of decoherence, and if the Markovian approximation is performed, the dynamics can be described as a sequence of scattering events given by random momentum kicks. We show how these dynamics are immediately characterized by means of classical stochastic counting processes, and how a distribution of the scatterings in time following a so-called renewal processes generate strong non-Markovian dynamics. The non-Markovian dynamics thus obtained are analyzed in the strong and weak decoherence regimes and are compared with the Markovian case.
[1] K.Hornberger et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 160401 (2003).
[2] B. Vacchini and K. Hornberger, Phys. Rep. 478, 71-120 (2009).