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arXiv · 2407.04389

Unitary death of Schr\"odinger's cat

Pavel Stránský·Pavel Cejnar·Radim Filip
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Abstract

We analyze dynamics of the Rabi model describing interactions of a qubit with a single soft-mode oscillator. We show that the model with a slightly violated parity generates symmetric Schr{\"o}dinger cat states of the oscillator, which suddenly perish in a spontaneous unitary process similar to the measurement-induced wave-function collapse. The effect is sufficiently robust to be tested experimentally, e.g., with trapped ions, macroscopic mechanical oscillators or superconducting circuits.

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Pavel Stránský, Pavel Cejnar, Radim Filip. 2024-07-05. Unitary death of Schr\"odinger's cat. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.110.l030202

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