Abstract
We study decoherence of the external degree of freedom of a tracer particle moving in a one dimensional dilute Boltzmann gas. We find that phase averaging is the dominant decoherence effect, rather than information exchange between tracer and gas particles. While a coherent superposition of two wave packets with different mean positions quickly turns into a mixed state, it is demonstrated that such superpositions of different momenta are robust to phase averaging, until the two wave packets acquire a different position due to the different velocity of each wave packet.
| Original language | English |
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| Pages (from-to) | 052104-1-052104-9 |
| Number of pages | 9 |
| Journal | Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics |
| Volume | 82 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2010 |