Decoherence in a Two Slit Diffraction Experiment with Massive Particles

PAULA I. VILLAR & FERNANDO C. LOMBARDO

Castello di Piombino, Toscana, Italia

Workshop; Third International Workshop DICE2006 "Quantum Mechanics between Decoherence and Determinism: new aspects from particle physics to cosmology"; 2006

Matter-wave interferometry has been largely studied in the last few years. Usually, the main problem in the analysis of the diffraction experiments is to establish the causes for the loss of coherence observed in the interference pattern. In this work, we use different type of environmental couplings to model a two slit diffraction experiment with massive particles. For each model, we study the effects of decoherence on the interference pattern and define a visibility function that measures the loss of contrast of the interference fringes on a distant screen. Finally, we apply our results to the experimental reported data on massive particles $C_{70}$.