Hot Schrödinger Cat States: High-Temp Quantum Superpositions
Instead of starting from a system that has been cooled to its ground state, hot Schrödinger cat states are quantum superposition states that are created from thermally stimulated initial states
A cat, a macroscopic and out-of-equilibrium system at body temperature, was in a superposition of two mixed states dominated by classical fluctuations in Schrödinger’s original thought experiment
Hot Schrödinger cat states are caused by the difficulty of ground-state cooling for continuous-variable quantum systems like levitated particles and nanomechanical oscillators
The resultant hot Schrödinger cat states showed Wigner-negative interference patterns for all initial thermal states under investigation, indicating their nonclassical nature
It is feasible to create and monitor quantum features in states with high thermal excitation by using particular unitary protocols, which could increase the range and use of quantum technologies
In this Science Advances study, “hot” Schrödinger cat states quantum superpositions arising from mixed thermal states instead of pure ground states are experimentally created and analysed
A mathematical entity that represents the knowledge of a quantum system is called a quantum state in quantum physics