On Schrödinger cat states and classical distinguishability

Abstract

There has been a lot of interest recently in what are referred to as Schrodinger cat states. No precise formulation of the concepts of Schrodinger cat states and classical distinguishability appears to exist. This paper aims to explore these concepts. A number of illustrative examples are presented, including a perturbed harmonic oscillator admitting coherent states with time-dependent amplitude modulation. One can convert the results on harmonic oscillators to single-mode optical systems in the standard manner. It would be interesting to see an experimental realization of these amplitude-modulated coherent states.