Eur. Phys. J. D (2022) 76: 67
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/s10053-022-00399-2

Regular Article – Quantum Information

Coherence behaviors of an atom immersing in a massive scalar field

School of Economics and Management, Wuyi University, 529020, Jiangmen, China

^a 465609785@qq.com

Received: 11 December 2021
Accepted: 6 April 2022
Published online: 16 April 2022

Abstract

We investigate the behaviors of quantum coherence (QC) for an uniformly accelerating atom coupling to a massive scalar field in the Minkowski vacuum and a static atom immersing in a thermal bath of massive scalar field. The master equation that governs the system evolution is derived. We firstly examine the thermal effect of massive scalar field in the light of the equilibrium state. It is found that QC would decrease to zero due to the influence of vacuum fluctuation, acceleration or temperature when field mass is smaller than the energy-level spacing of the atom. However, compared with massless scalar field, QC degradation can be delayed by the field mass. When the field mass is smaller than but close to the energy level spacing, QC dynamical behaviors of accelerated atom significantly differ from that of static one in a thermal bath of massive scalar field, which is distinct from that situation of massless scalar field that is QC behaviors of accelerated atom is the same as that of static one in a thermal bath at the Unruh temperature. In particular, when energy-level spacing is not greater than the field mass, QC of accelerated atom in vacuum cannot keep long time, but QC of static atom in thermal bath can maintain for long. Thus, the energy-level spacing with respect to the mass of the field, acceleration and temperature gives us more freedom of adjusting the QC behaviors, which in principle can be used to discriminate massive scalar field and massless scalar field. The results let us have a deeper understanding of properties of the massive scalar field.