Creation and detection of a mesoscopic gas in a non-local quantum superposition

TL;DR

This paper explores how a quantum matter wave soliton can form mesoscopic Schrödinger cat states through barrier scattering and proposes an interferometric method to detect this superposition, with detailed discussion on experimental feasibility.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to generate and detect mesoscopic superpositions of atomic gases using soliton-barrier interactions in one dimension.

Findings

Mesoscopic Schrödinger cat states can be created via soliton scattering.

An interferometric method is proposed to verify superposition coherence.

Feasibility analysis supports experimental implementation.

Abstract

We investigate the scattering of a quantum matter wave soliton on a barrier in a one dimensional geometry and we show that it can lead to mesoscopic Schr\"odinger cat states, where the atomic gas is in a coherent superposition of being in the half-space to the left of the barrier and being in the half-space to the right of the barrier. We propose an interferometric method to reveal the coherent nature of this superposition and we discuss in details the experimental feasibility.