Visibility, decoherence and fluctuations in interference experiments

Angelo Mariano

doi:10.1117/12.475886

22 July 2002 Visibility, decoherence and fluctuations in interference experiments

Angelo Mariano

Proceedings Volume 4888, First International Workshop on Classical and Quantum Interference; (2002) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.475886
Event: First International Workshop of Research Center for Optics on Classical and Quantum Interference, 2001, Olomouc, Czech Republic

Abstract

We analyze some interesting and peculiar phenomena that appear both in the well-known classical domain and in the quantum domain, related to the behavior of the visibility in interference experiments. One can show that, according to its usual definition, the visibility is not a monotonic function of appropriate quantities, such as the optical path difference. In the quantum domain, the visibility can be used to infer the quantum mechanical coherence properties of a quantum particle, like for example a neutron, interacting with a fluctuating environment. In some cases the wave function is more coherent even though it has interacted with a more disordered medium. We will refer to these results as anomalous, because they are against naive expectations.

Citation Download Citation

Angelo Mariano "Visibility, decoherence and fluctuations in interference experiments", Proc. SPIE 4888, First International Workshop on Classical and Quantum Interference, (22 July 2002); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.475886

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