Hylke C. Donker, Hans De Raedt, Mikhail I. Katsnelson
SciPost Phys. 2, 010 (2017) - published 23 March 2017 | Toggle abstract pdf
We study the decoherence process of a four spin-1/2 antiferromagnet that is
coupled to an environment of spin-1/2 particles. The preferred basis of the
antiferromagnet is discussed in two limiting cases and we identify two
$\it{exact}$ pointer states. Decoherence near the two limits is examined
whereby entropy is used to quantify the $\it{robustness}$ of states against
environmental coupling. We find that close to the quantum measurement limit,
the self-Hamiltonian of the system of interest can become dynamically relevant
on macroscopic timescales. We illustrate this point by explicitly constructing
a state that is more robust than (generic) states diagonal in the
system-environment interaction Hamiltonian.
