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Decoherence and pointer states in small antiferromagnets: A benchmark test
by H. C. Donker, H. De Raedt, M. I. Katsnelson
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Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Hylke Donker |
| Submission information | |
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| Preprint Link: | https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.03099v3 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | 2017-02-24 |
| Date submitted: | 2017-02-17 01:00 |
| Submitted by: | Donker, Hylke |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
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| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Computational |
Abstract
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 exact pointer states. Decoherence near the two limits is examined whereby entropy is used to quantify the 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.
List of changes
1) The figures have been enlarged, in particular Figs. 2 & 5.
2) The units of time t is stressed in the captions of the figures.
Published as SciPost Phys. 2, 010 (2017)