Decoherence of Schrödinger cat states in light of wave/particle duality (2501.12328v1)

Abstract: We challenge the standard picture of decohering Schr\"odinger cat states as an ensemble average obeying a Lindblad master equation, brought about locally from an irreversible interaction with an environment. We generate self-consistent collections of pure system states correlated with specific environmental records, corresponding to the function of the wave-particle correlator first introduced in Carmichael {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. 85, 1855 (2000)]. In the spirit of Carmichael {\it et al.} [Coherent States: Past, Present and Future, pp. 75--91, World Scientific (1994)], we find that the complementary unravelings evince a pronounced disparity when the position'' andmomentum'' of the damped cavity mode -- an explicitly open quantum system -- are measured. Intensity-field correlations may largely deviate from a monotonic decay, while Wigner functions of the cavity state display contrasting manifestations of quantum interference when conditioned on photon counts sampling a continuous photocurrent. In turn, the conditional photodetection events mark the contextual diffusion of both the net charge generated at the homodyne detector, and the electromagnetic field amplitude in the resonator.