Decoherence induced by a fluctuating Aharonov Casher phase

FERNANDO C. LOMBARDO, FRANCISCO D. MAZZITELLI & PAULA I. VILLAR

PHYSICAL REVIEW A - ATOMIC, MOLECULAR AND OPTICAL PHYSICS

American Physical Society, APS, Ridge

Lugar: New York, EEUU.; Año: 2005 vol. 72 p. 4211 - 4219

1050-2947

Dipole interference is studied when atomic systems are coupled to classical electromagnetic fields. The interaction between the dipoles and the classical fields induces a time-varying Aharonov-Casher phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppression of fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitable experimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be observable and almost as large as the corresponding one for coherent electrons. We analyze different trajectories in order to show the dependence of the decoherence factor with the velocity of the particles.