Coherent delocalization in the light-matter interaction
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Date
2020-10-08
Authors
Stritzelberger, Nadine
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
In this thesis, we study coherent delocalization in the light-matter interaction: we investigate
how the coherent center of mass delocalization of a first quantized system affects its interaction
with a second quantized field. We develop a suitably generalized Unruh-DeWitt model for the
interaction between a delocalizing particle and a relativistic quantum field. We discuss the
impact which the coherent spreading of the detector's center of mass wave function has on the
simple processes of absorption, spontaneous emission and vacuum excitation. We find that the
dynamical virtual delocalization process leads to interesting new phenomenology not only for the
interaction of matter systems with the electromagnetic quantum field, but also with other fields
such as a phonon field. For instance, we predict that in a medium, in the case of a supersonic
coherent spreading of the center of mass wave function, a coherently delocalized detector may
get excited and emit Cherenkov-like radiation. We further investigate how the coherent center
of mass delocalization impacts the process of entanglement harvesting and the Unruh effect.
Description
Keywords
coherent delocalization, Unruh-DeWitt detector model, light-matter interaction, Cherenkov effect, entanglement harvesting, Unruh effect, relativistic quantum information