Modular Variables and the Limits of Phase Detectability in Open Quantum Systems

TL;DR

This paper investigates how gravitational fields and environmental interactions influence the detectability of quantum phase information in modular variables, revealing their robustness and limitations in open quantum systems.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of modular operators' evolution under gravity and decoherence, highlighting their potential for phase detection beyond standard measures.

Findings

Gravitational acceleration induces a time-varying modular signal sensitive to phase.

Standard local quantities become insensitive to phase when wave packets do not overlap.

Environmental correlations can modify modular signals but do not transfer phase sensitivity across particles.

Abstract

Modular variables serve as a striking example of quantum nonlocality, particularly in superpositions of wave packets that are spatially well separated, where the relative phase between components cannot be accessed through conventional local measurements. In this work, we explore the time evolution of Hermitian modular operators for Gaussian wave-packet superpositions under the influence of a uniform gravitational field. We consider both unitary dynamics governed by the Schr\"odinger equation and open-system dynamics described by the Caldeira-Leggett master equation in the high-temperature limit. Adopting the Bohmian interpretation of quantum mechanics, we compute local expectation values of these modular operators along individual particle trajectories. Our analysis shows that gravitational acceleration induces a time-varying modular signal, the expectation value of the modular observable, that remains sensitive to the relative phase between the separated wave packets. In contrast, standard local quantities such as the probability density and probability current, while modified by gravity, become insensitive to the relative phase in the regime of negligible spatial overlap. For a pair of particles coupled to a shared environment, we find that environment-induced correlations can modify the local modular expectation value observed for one particle, yielding a clear signature of environmental influence. However, the transfer of phase sensitivity via environment-generated entanglement to the modular signal of the distant particle remains negligible within the regime considered. We further demonstrate that conventional measures of coherence and entanglement do not capture the relative phase information in this non-overlapping regime.