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Entanglement, Decoherence and the Quantum∕Classical Boundary Serge Haroche

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Entanglement, Decoherence and the Quantum∕Classical Boundary Serge Haroche Entanglement, Decoherence and the Quantum∕Classical Boundary Serge Haroche Citation: Phys. Today 51(7), 36 (1998); doi: 10.1063/1.882326 View online: http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.882326 View Table of Contents: http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/PHTOAD/v51/i7 Published by the American Institute of Physics. Additional resources for Physics Today Homepage: http://www.physicstoday.org/ Information: http://www.physicstoday.org/about_us Daily Edition: http://www.physicstoday.org/daily_edition Downloaded 09 Oct 2012 to 152.3.102.242. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://www.physicstoday.org/about_us/terms ENTANGLEMENT, DECOHERENCE AND THE QUANTUM/CLASSICAL BOUNDARY mechanics is individually obey quantum ^very puzzling. A parti- Schrodinger intended his gedanken mechanics. There's the cle can be delocalized, it can experiment of a hapless cat mortally paradox. Erwin Schrodinger be simultaneously in several famously illustrated this co- energy states and it can even entangled with a quantum trigger as a nundrum with his provoca- have several different iden- reductio ad absurdum. But nowadays such tive cat gedanken experi- tities at once. This schizo- ment.4 He described a phrenic behavior is encoded experiments are being realized in diabolical contraption in in its wavefunction, which laboratories—without offending the which a feline would become can always be written as a antivivisectionists entangled with a single superposition of quantum atom. The system would be states, each characterized by described by a wavefunction a complex probability ampli- Serge Haroche representing at the same tude. Interferences between time the cat alive with the these amplitudes occur when atom excited and the cat the particle can follow several indistinguishable paths. dead with the atom back in its ground state after its decay Any attempt to determine which trajectory it "actually takes" emission has triggered a lethal device. Quantum experts destroys these interferences. This is a manifestation of will object that a cat is a complex and open system which wave—particle complementarity, which has recently been cannot, even at the initial time of this cruel experiment, illustrated in textbook fashion by several beautiful experi- 1 be described by a wavefunction. The metaphor, neverthe- ments. less raises an important question: Why and how does Nonlocality in quantum systems consisting of spa- quantum weirdness disappear in large systems? tially separated parts is even more puzzling, as Albert Explanations for this "decoherence" phenomenon can Einstein and collaborators Boris Podolsky and Nathan 2 be traced back to discussions by the founding fathers of Rosen pointed out in the famous "EPR" paper of 1935. quantum mechanics, and to 50-year-old developments in Recent decades have witnessed a rash of EPR experi- the theory of relaxation phenomena. But only in the last ments, designed to test whether nature really does exhibit 3 15 years have entirely solvable models of decoherence in this implausible nonlocality. In such experiments, the large systems been discussed, notably by Anthony Leggett, wavefunction of a pair of particles flying apart from each Eric Joos, Roland Omnes, Dieter Zeh and Wojciech Zurek.5 other is entangled into a non-separable superposition of (See also the article by Zurek in PHYSICS TODAY, October states. The quantum formalism asserts that detecting 1991, page 36.) These models are based on the distinction one of the particles has an immediate effect on the other, in large objects between a few relevant macroscopic ob- even if they are very far apart. The experimenter can servables like the position or momentum of the object, even delay deciding on the kind of measurement to be and an "environment" described by a huge number of performed on the particles until after they are out of interaction range. Nonetheless, these experiments clearly variables, such as positions and velocities of air molecules, demonstrate that the state of one particle is always cor- number of blackbody-radiation photons and the like. related to the result of the measurement performed on When the system is brought into a superposition of the other, in just the strange way predicted by quantum different macroscopic states, information about this super- mechanics. position is unavoidably and irreversibly leaking into the environment at a rate that increases with the separation The results of all these experiments are counterintui- between the parts, thus efficiently randomizing their tive. Such things are never observed in our macroscopic quantum coherence. The link with complementarity is world. Nobody has ever seen a billard ball going through striking. As Zurek put it, the environment is watching two holes at once, or two of them spinning away from the path followed by the system, and thus suppressing each other after a collision in a quantum superposition of interference effects and quantum weirdness. The strong anticorrelated states! dependence of the decoherence rate on the system's size and the separation of its parts is the trademark of this Schrodinger's cat phenomenon, which makes it different from other mani- Nonetheless, macroscopic objects are made of atoms that festations of relaxation. In macroscopic systems, this process is so efficient SERGE HAROCHE is a professor of physics at the Ecole Normale that we see only its final result: the classical world around Superieure in Paris and at the Pierre and Marie Curie us. Could one prepare wiesoscopic systems—somewhere University (University of Paris VI). between the macro- and microscopic—in which decoher- ence would occur, but slowly enough to be observed? Until CD 1998,Xmtrican Institute of Phj-sics. S-003I-922S-95C7-030-6 36 JULY 199Downloaded8 PHYSIC 09 Oct 2012S TODA to 152.3.102.242.Y Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://www.physicstoday.org/about_us/terms FIGURE 1. ION TRAP electrode structure used by the NIST group in Boulder, Colorado.9 Single beryllium ions are confined along the vertical axis in the middle of the tiny 0.2-mm-wide notch at the center by potentials on the gold-plated electrodes. Through this notch, laser pulses can be directed at the oscillating ion. (Photo courtesy of C. Myatt, NIST.) optics experiments, very disparate in their techniques, have a striking simi- ; larity. They both realize a simple situ- s the ation in which a two-level atom is ^linger coupled to a quantized harmonic oscil- this co- lator. The Hamiltonian of this system, irovofa- first studied by Edwin Jaynes and esperi- Frederick Cummings in 1963, has ibed a been a favorite of the theorists ever ;ion in since. In spite of its simplicity, the become system describes a great variety of single interesting situations.7 rould be There have been many proposals beta over the last 15 years to realize em- e same bodiments of Schrodinger's cat with vith the such a system.8 The feline role would be played by an excited harmonic os- cillator. These experiments have now come of age. By taming small labora- tory versions of Schrodinger's cat ex- enment. periment in which the number of levertie- quanta can be progressively increased, we are learning more about decoher- ence and the elusive quantum/classical ;non can boundary. itheis of In the ion trap experiment done ments m by David Wineland, Chistopher Mon- i the to roe and coworkers at the National In- •rente in stitute of Standards and Technology Legpti (NIST) laboratory in Boulder, Colo- rado, a single beryllium ion is moni- iZrf tored.9 The trap is created in ultra- Octote high vacuum by a combination of static diner* and oscillating electric fields applied to tiny metallic electrodes (See fig- ie object. ure 1.) The ion is manipulated and unbtr i detected in an exquisitely refined way by sequences of carefully tailored laser recently, such a thing could be imagined only as a pulses. The ion oscillates in the trap along one direction ,;,tlijD tl gedanken experiment. But technological advances have at a frequency of 11.2 MHz. It has two relevant internal is sop*' now made such experiments real, and they have opened energy levels, which we call, for simplicity, | +> and | ->. into ll« this field to practical investigation. They are two hyperfine sublevels of the ion's ground state. Various condensed matter systems have been consid- The transition frequency between them is 12 GHz. The tbeii ered as possible candidates for such studies. The pos- | +> state can be selectively detected by applying a polar- itaritj" n sibility of using Josephson junctions and SQUID tech- ized detection laser (Ld) beam tuned to a transition that nology to prepare and study quantum coherences in- couples this state to an excited level. As the ion sub- volving mesoscopic superconducting currents has been sequently decays back to its ground state, it emits fluo- discussed by Leggett,5 and interesting quantum tunnel- rescence photons. Many photons are scattered when the ing experiments have been realized in this context. But ion is cycling under laser excitation. The | -> state, which they have not yet directly addressed the decoherence issue does not interact with the tuned Ld beam, announces itself quantitatively. by the absence of light scattering—a null measurement. At the beginning of the NIST experiment, cooling laser Entangling experiments beams bring the ion down to its vibrational ground state. Its motional wavefunction is then a Gaussian wave packet In the last two years, great progress has been made in localized at the trap's center. The packet's width, a few creating entangled quantum states of ions in traps or nanometers, is due to the zero-point quantum fluctuations atoms in high-Q cavities. These two kinds of quantum JULY 1998 PHYSICS TODAY 37 Downloaded 09 Oct 2012 to 152.3.102.242. Redistribution subject to AIP license or copyright; see http://www.physicstoday.org/about_us/terms FIGURE 2.
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