Assisted harvesting and catalysis of coherence from scalar fields

Abstract: Recently it has been demonstrated that it is possible to harvest quantum resources other than entanglement from a coherent scalar field. Employing time-dependent perturbation theory, we present a complete analysis of the conditions under which a spatially extended Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to the proper time derivative of the field can harvest coherence for any initial state of the field, as well as the energy cost that is required for each harvest. By studying harvesting under repeatable extractions it is proven that when the detector interacts with the field through a delta coupling coherence is catalytic. For a Gaussian smeared detector it is shown that harvesting from a coherent field depends on the phase of its amplitude distribution and its initial energy as well as on the mean radius of the detector and the mean interaction duration between the two. For a detector moving at a constant velocity and with a mean radius of the same order as its transition wavelength, we observe that, for relativistic speeds, coherence swelling effects are present the intensity of which depends on the dimension of the underlying Minkowski spacetime.