| Slow Decoherence of Superpositions of Macroscopically Distinct States (1999) | |||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||
| Linear superpositions of macroscopically distinct quantum states (sometimes also called Schr\"odinger cat states) are usually almost immediately reduced to a statistical mixture if exposed to the dephasing influence of a dissipative environment. Couplings to the environment with a certain symmetry can lead to slow decoherence, however. We give specific examples of slowly decohering Schr\"odinger cat states in a realistic quantum optical system and discuss how they might be constructed experimentally.. Comment: 8 pages of revtex; to be published in proceedings of the 1998 Bielefeld Conference on 'Decoherence: Theoretical, Experimental, and Conceptual Problems' | |||||||||
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