Decoherence of a Macroscopic Quantum Superposition

TL;DR

This paper investigates the decoherence properties of a recently discovered macroscopic quantum superposition involving over 50,000 photons, comparing it with traditional coherent state superpositions to understand their resilience.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical and numerical analysis of a new macroscopic quantum superposition and compares its decoherence behavior with well-known coherent state superpositions.

Findings

The new MQS shows high resilience to decoherence.

Decoherence properties are explained by a universal function.

The properties of the new MQS are contrasted with |alpha> state superpositions.

Abstract

The high resilience to de-coherence shown by a recently discovered Macroscopic Quantum Superposition (MQS) involving a number of photons in excess of 5 x 10^4 motivates the present theoretical and numerical investigation. The results are placed in close comparison with the properties of the well known MQS based on |alpha> states. The very critical decoherence properties of the latter MQS are found to be fully accounted for, in a direct a simple way, by a unique "universal" function: indeed a new property of the quantum "coherent states".