Eur. Phys. J. D 42, 103-108 (2007)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2006-00272-2

Indirect decoherence in optical lattices and cold gases

Laboratoire de Physique Théorique, IRSAMC, UMR 5152 du CNRS, Université Paul Sabatier, 118 route de Narbonne, 31062 Toulouse, France

Corresponding author: ^a braun@irsamc.ups-tlse.fr

Received: 31 May 2006
Revised: 21 September 2006
Published online: 15 December 2006

Abstract

The interaction of two–level atoms with a common heat bath leads to an effective interaction between the atoms, such that with time the internal degrees of the atoms become correlated or even entangled. If part of the atoms remain unobserved this creates additional indirect decoherence for the selected atoms, on top of the direct decoherence due to the interaction with the heat bath. I show that indirect decoherence can drastically increase and even dominate the decoherence for sufficiently large times. I investigate indirect decoherence through thermal black body radiation quantitatively for atoms trapped at regular positions in an optical lattice as well as for atoms at random positions in a cold gas, and show how indirect decoherence can be controlled or even suppressed through experimentally accessible parameters.