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Register a new userDetecting the degree of macroscopic quantumness using an overlap measurement
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We investigate how to experimentally detect a recently proposed measure to quantify macroscopic quantum superpositions [Phys. Rev. Lett. 106, 220401 (2011)], namely, macroscopic quantumness $mathcal{I}$. Schemes based on overlap measurements for harmonic oscillator states and for qubit states are extensively investigated. Effects of detection inefficiency and coarse-graining are analyzed in order to assess feasibility of the schemes.
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Quantum mechanics marks a radical departure from the classical understanding of Nature, fostering an inherent randomness which forbids a deterministic description; yet the most fundamental departure arises from something different. As shown by Bell [1] and Kochen-Specker [2], quantum mechanics portrays a picture of the world in which reality loses its objectivity and is in fact created by observation. Quantum mechanics predicts phenomena which cannot be explained by any theory with objective realism, although our everyday experience supports the hypothesis that macroscopic objects, despite being made of quantum particles, exist independently of the act of observation; in this paper we identify this behavior as classical. Here we show that this seemingly obvious classical behavior of the macroscopic world cannot be experimentally tested and belongs to the realm of ontology similar to the dispute on the interpretations of quantum mechanics [3,4]. For small systems such as a single photon [5] or a pair [6], it has been experimentally proven that a classical description cannot be sustained. Recently, there have also been experiments that claim to have demonstrated quantum behavior of relatively large objects such as interference of fullerenes [7], the violation of Leggett-Garg inequality in Josephson junction [8], and interference between two condensed clouds of atoms [9], which suggest that there is no limit to the size of the system on which the quantum-versus-classical question can be tested. These behaviors, however, are not sufficient to refute classical description in the sense of objective reality. Our findings show that once we reach the regime where an Avogadro number of particles is present, the quantum-versus-classical question cannot be answered experimentally.
When is decoherence effectively irreversible? Here we examine this central question of quantum foundations using the tools of quantum computational complexity. We prove that, if one had a quantum circuit to determine if a system was in an equal superposition of two orthogonal states (for example, the $|$Alive$rangle$ and $|$Dead$rangle$ states of Schr{o}dingers cat), then with only a slightly larger circuit, one could also $mathit{swap}$ the two states (e.g., bring a dead cat back to life). In other words, observing interference between the $|$Alive$rangle$and $|$Dead$rangle$ states is a necromancy-hard problem, technologically infeasible in any world where death is permanent. As for the converse statement (i.e., ability to swap implies ability to detect interference), we show that it holds modulo a single exception, involving unitaries that (for example) map $|$Alive$rangle$ to $|$Dead$rangle$ but $|$Dead$rangle$ to -$|$Alive$rangle$. We also show that these statements are robust---i.e., even a $mathit{partial}$ ability to observe interference implies partial swapping ability, and vice versa. Finally, without relying on any unproved complexity conjectures, we show that all of these results are quantitatively tight. Our results have possible implications for the state dependence of observables in quantum gravity, the subject that originally motivated this study.
The paradigm of Schr{o}dingers cat illustrates how quantum states preclude the assignment of definite properties to a macroscopic object (realism). In this work we develop a method to investigate the indefiniteness of cat states using currently available cold atom technology. The method we propose uses the observation of a statistical distribution to demonstrate the macroscopic distinction between dead and alive states, and uses the determination of the interferometric sensitivity (Fisher information) to detect the indefiniteness of the cats vital status. We show how combining the two observations can provide information about the structure of the quantum state without the need for full quantum state tomography, and propose a measure of the indefiniteness based on this structure. We test this method using a cat state proposed by Gordon and Savage [Phys. Rev. A 59, 4623 (1999)] which is dynamically produced from a coherent state. As a control, we consider a set of states produced using the same dynamical procedure acting on an initial thermal distribution. Numerically simulating our proposed method, we show that as the temperature of this initial state is increased, the produced state undergoes a quantum to classical crossover where the indefiniteness of the cats vital status is lost, while the macroscopic distinction between dead and alive states of the cat is maintained.
It has recently been suggested that black holes may be described as condensates of weakly interacting gravitons at a critical point, exhibiting strong quantum effects. In this paper, we study a model system of attractive bosons in one spatial dimension which is known to undergo a quantum phase transition. We demonstrate explicitly that indeed quantum effects are important at the critical point, even if the number of particles is macroscopic. Most prominently, we evaluate the entropy of entanglement between different momentum modes and observe it to become maximal at the critical point. Furthermore, we explicitly see that the leading entanglement is between long wavelength modes and is hence a feature independent of ultraviolet physics. If applicable to black holes, our findings substantiate the conjectured breakdown of semiclassical physics even for large black holes. This can resolve long standing mysteries, such as the information paradox and the no-hair theorem.
Recently it was shown that the quantum behavior of an intense cavity field can be revealed by measuring the steady atomic correlations between two ideal atoms, which interact with the same leaking cavity mode. Considering a weak atom-field coupling regime and large average number of photons in the cavity mode ($bar{n}$), one expects that a semiclassical theory could explain the whole dynamics of the system. However, this system presents the generation of correlations between the atoms, which is a signature of the quantumness of the cavity field even in the limit of $bar{n} gg 1$ [Phys. Rev. Lett. textbf{107}, 153601 (2011)]. Here, we extend this result by investigating the relaxation time for such a system. We have shown that the relaxation time of the system varies proportionally to $bar{n}$ for a coherent driving, but it is inversely proportional to $bar{n}$ for an incoherent pumping. Thus, the time required to observe the manifestation of the quantum aspects of a cavity field on the atomic correlations diverges as $bar{n}$ tends to macroscopic values due to a coherent driving, while it goes to zero for incoherent pumping. For a coherent driving, we can also see that this system presents metastability, i.e., firstly the atomic system reaches a quasi-stationary state which last for a long time interval, but eventually it reaches the real steady state. We have also discussed the effects of small atomic decay. In this case, the steady correlations between the atoms disappear for long times, but the intense cavity field is still able to generate atomic correlations at intermediate times. Then, considering a real scenario, we would be able to monitor the quantumness of a cavity field in a certain time interval.
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