Quantum dynamics of a macroscopic magnet operating as an environment of a mechanical oscillator

Abstract

We study the dynamics of a bipartite quantum system in a way such that its formal description keeps holding even if one of its parts becomes macroscopic: the problem is related with the analysis of the quantum-to-classical crossover, but our approach implies that the whole system stays genuinely quantum. Aim of the work is to understand 1) if, 2) to what extent, and possibly 3) how, the evolution of a macroscopic environment testifies to the coupling with its microscopic quantum companion. To this purpose we consider a magnetic environment made of a large number of spin-1/2 particles, coupled with a quantum mechanical oscillator, possibly in the presence of an external magnetic field. We take the value of the total environmental-spin S constant and large, which allows us to consider the environment as one single macroscopic system, and further deal with the hurdles of the spin-algebra via approximations that are valid in the large-S limit. We find an insightful expression for the propagator of the whole system, where we identify an effective "back-action" term, i.e. an operator acting on the magnetic environment only, and yet missing in the absence of the quantum principal system. This operator emerges as a time-dependent magnetic anisotropy whose character, whether uniaxial or planar, also depends on the detuning between the level-splitting in the spectrum of the free magnetic system, induced by the possible presence of the external field, and the frequency of the oscillator. The time-dependence of the anisotropy is analysed, and its effects on the dynamics of the magnet, as well as its relation with the entangling evolution of the overall system, are discussed.