https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-022-02367-6
Regular Article
On some unexplored decoherence aspects in the Caldeira–Leggett formalism: arrival time distributions, identical particles and diffraction in time
1
Department of Physics, University of Qom, Ghadir Blvd., 371614-6611, Qom, Iran
2
Instituto de Física Fundamental, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Serrano 123, 28006, Madrid, Spain
Received:
17
May
2021
Accepted:
10
January
2022
Published online:
19
January
2022
Some unexplored decoherence aspects within the Caldeira–Leggett master equation are analyzed and discussed. The decoherence process is controlled by the two environment parameters, the relaxation rate or friction and the temperature, leading to a gradual transition from the quantum to classical regime. Arrival time distributions, non-minimum-uncertainty-product or stretching Gaussian wave packets, identical particles and diffraction in time display interesting features during the decoherence process undergone by the time dependent interference patterns. We show that the presence of a constant force field does not affect the decoherence, positive values of the stretching parameter reduce the rate of decoherence, the symmetry of the wave function for identical particles is not robust enough in the gradual decoherence process because indistinguishability is lost, and diffraction in time and space is gradually washed out by increasing the temperature and/or relaxation rate in the zero dissipation limit within the so-called quantum shutter problem.
© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022
