Entanglement and the process of measuring the position of a quantum particle

We explore the entanglement-related features exhibited by the dynamics of a composite quantum system consisting of a particle and an apparatus (here referred to as the "pointer") that measures the position of the particle. We consider measurements of finite duration, and also the limit cas...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Apel, V. M., Curilef, S., Plastino, Ángel Ricardo
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2015
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/22355
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/22355
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Entanglement
Quantum Dynamics
Quantum Measurement
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.3
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descripción
Sumario:We explore the entanglement-related features exhibited by the dynamics of a composite quantum system consisting of a particle and an apparatus (here referred to as the "pointer") that measures the position of the particle. We consider measurements of finite duration, and also the limit case of instantaneous measurements. We investigate the time evolution of the quantum entanglement between the particle and the pointer, with special emphasis on the final entanglement associated with the limit case of an impulsive interaction. We consider entanglement indicators based on the expectation values of an appropriate family of observables, and also an entanglement measure computed on particular exact analytical solutions of the particle-pointer Schrödinger equation. The general behavior exhibited by the entanglement indicators is consistent with that shown by the entanglement measure evaluated on particular analytical solutions of the Schrödinger equation. In the limit of instantaneous measurements the system´s entanglement dynamics corresponds to that of an ideal quantum measurement process. On the contrary, we show that the entanglementevolution corresponding to measurements of finite duration departs in important ways from the behavior associated with ideal measurements. In particular, highly localized initial states of the particle lead to highly entangled final states of the particle-pointer system. This indicates that the above mentioned initial states, in spite of having an arbitrarily small position uncertainty, are not left unchanged by a finite-duration position measurement process.