Preparation and decoherence of superpositions of electromagnetic field states

Abstract

In a recent experiment the progressive decoherence of a mesoscopic superposition of two coherent field states in a high-Q cavity, known as Schrodinger cat state, has been measured for the first time [Brune et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 77, 4887 (1996)]. Here, the full master equation governing the coupled dissipative dynamics of the atom-field system studied in the experiment is formulated and solved numerically for the experimental parameters. The model simulated avoids the approximations underlying an analytically solvable model which is based on a harmonic expansion of the energies of the dressed atomic states and on a treatment of their dynamics within the adiabatic approximation. In particular, the numerical simulations reveal that the coupling of the cavity field mode to its environment causes important decoherence effects already during the initial preparation phase of the Schrodinger cat state. This phenomenon is investigated in detail with the help of a measure for the purity of states. Moreover, the Hilbert-Schmidt distance of the intended target state, the Schrodinger cat, to the state that is actually prepared in the experiment is determined.