Distinguishability-induced many-body decoherence

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that many-body interference effects diminish exponentially with increasing particle number when particles are partially distinguishable, impacting experiments in cold atoms and photonics.

Contribution

It introduces the concept that partial distinguishability causes exponential suppression of many-body interference, providing new insights into decoherence mechanisms.

Findings

Many-body interference is exponentially suppressed by distinguishability.

Implications for cold atom and photonic experiments.

Quantitative analysis of decoherence due to internal state mixing.

Abstract

We show that many-body interference (MBI) phenomena are exponentially suppressed in the particle number, if only the identical quantum objects brought to interference acquire a finite level of distinguishability through statistical mixing of some internal, unobserved degrees of freedom. We discuss consequences for cold atom and photonic circuitry experiments.