Decoherence in a Two Slit Diffraction Experiment with Massive Particles

TL;DR

This paper models decoherence effects in a two-slit diffraction experiment with massive particles, analyzing how environmental interactions cause loss of interference visibility, and applies findings to experimental data with C70 molecules.

Contribution

It introduces different environmental coupling models to quantify decoherence effects in matter-wave interferometry with massive particles.

Findings

Decoherence reduces interference fringe visibility.

Environmental interactions significantly impact coherence.

Results align with experimental data on C70 molecules.

Abstract

Matter-wave interferometry has been largely studied in the last few years. Usually, the main problem in the analysis of the diffraction experiments is to establish the causes for the loss of coherence observed in the interference pattern. In this work, we use different type of environmental couplings to model a two slit diffraction experiment with massive particles. For each model, we study the effects of decoherence on the interference pattern and define a visibility function that measures the loss of contrast of the interference fringes on a distant screen. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental reported data on massive particles $C_{70}$.