Cat States and Single Runs for the Damped Harmonic Oscillator

TL;DR

This paper explores the evolution and potential preparation of Schrödinger cat states in a damped harmonic oscillator using stochastic Schrödinger equations, linking theoretical insights to experimental realizations.

Contribution

It introduces a linear stochastic Schrödinger equation approach to analyze cat states in damped oscillators and discusses their experimental preparation.

Findings

Analysis of the fate of initial cat states under damping

Discussion on how to prepare cat states experimentally

Connection between single noise realizations and experimental runs

Abstract

We discuss the fate of initial states of the cat type for the damped harmonic oscillator, mostly employing a linear version of the stochastic Schr\"odinger equation. We also comment on how such cat states might be prepared and on the relation of single realizations of the noise to single runs of experiments.