Dephasing in matter-wave interferometry

FERNANDO C. LOMBARDO AND PAULA I. VILLAR

JOURNAL OF PHYSICS. A - MATHEMATICAL AND GENERAL

IOP

Lugar: London; Año: 2006 vol. 39 p. 6509 - 6516

0305-4470

We review different attempts to show the decoherence process in double-slit-like experiments both for charged particles (electrons) and for neutral particleswith permanent dipole moments. Interference is studied when electrons oratomic systems are coupled to classical or quantum electromagnetic fields.The interaction between the particles and time-dependent fields induces a time-varying Aharonov phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppressionof fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitableexperimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be almost aslarge as the corresponding one for coherent electrons and therefore can beobserved. We analyse different trajectories in order to show the dependence ofthe decoherence factor on the velocity of the particles.