Decoherence of Fock States Leads to a Maximally Quantum State

TL;DR

This paper studies how environmental interactions cause high-number Fock states to rapidly lose their quantum properties, revealing a peak in quantumness over time across different states.

Contribution

It demonstrates the dynamic evolution of quantumness in Fock states under environmental coupling using the Wigner function's negative volume as a metric.

Findings

High-$n$ Fock states lose quantum features faster than low-$n$ states.

A time-dependent peak in quantumness is observed across eigenstates.

Environmental interactions diminish quantum properties over time.

Abstract

We consider the Wigner function evolution of Fock states $|n\rangle$ linearly coupled to a Markovian bath of oscillators. In the absence of environmental coupling, apparent ``quantumness'' increases with $n$, but the presence of any environmental interaction causes high-$n$ states to lose their quantum features more rapidly than low-$n$ states. Using the negative volume of the Wigner function as a metric \cite{kenfack04}, we observe a time-dependent quantumness peak across the eigenstates.