Cargando…

Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit

Quantum coherence plays an essential role in diverse natural phenomena and technological applications. The unavoidable coupling of the quantum system to an uncontrolled environment incurs dissipation that is often described using the secular approximation. Here we probe the limit of this approximati...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ma, Junyang, Zhang, Haisu, Lavorel, Bruno, Billard, Franck, Hertz, Edouard, Wu, Jian, Boulet, Christian, Hartmann, Jean-Michel, Faucher, Olivier
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6920365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31852905
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13706-0
_version_ 1783480938050617344
author Ma, Junyang
Zhang, Haisu
Lavorel, Bruno
Billard, Franck
Hertz, Edouard
Wu, Jian
Boulet, Christian
Hartmann, Jean-Michel
Faucher, Olivier
author_facet Ma, Junyang
Zhang, Haisu
Lavorel, Bruno
Billard, Franck
Hertz, Edouard
Wu, Jian
Boulet, Christian
Hartmann, Jean-Michel
Faucher, Olivier
author_sort Ma, Junyang
collection PubMed
description Quantum coherence plays an essential role in diverse natural phenomena and technological applications. The unavoidable coupling of the quantum system to an uncontrolled environment incurs dissipation that is often described using the secular approximation. Here we probe the limit of this approximation in the rotational relaxation of molecules due to thermal collisions by using the laser-kicked molecular rotor as a model system. Specifically, rotational coherences in N(2)O gas (diluted in He) are created by two successive nonresonant short and intense laser pulses and probed by studying the change of amplitude of the rotational alignment echo with the gas density. By interrogating the system at the early stage of its collisional relaxation, we observe a significant variation of the dissipative influence of collisions with the time of appearance of the echo, featuring a decoherence process that is well reproduced by the nonsecular quantum master equation for modeling molecular collisions.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6920365
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher Nature Publishing Group UK
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-69203652019-12-20 Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit Ma, Junyang Zhang, Haisu Lavorel, Bruno Billard, Franck Hertz, Edouard Wu, Jian Boulet, Christian Hartmann, Jean-Michel Faucher, Olivier Nat Commun Article Quantum coherence plays an essential role in diverse natural phenomena and technological applications. The unavoidable coupling of the quantum system to an uncontrolled environment incurs dissipation that is often described using the secular approximation. Here we probe the limit of this approximation in the rotational relaxation of molecules due to thermal collisions by using the laser-kicked molecular rotor as a model system. Specifically, rotational coherences in N(2)O gas (diluted in He) are created by two successive nonresonant short and intense laser pulses and probed by studying the change of amplitude of the rotational alignment echo with the gas density. By interrogating the system at the early stage of its collisional relaxation, we observe a significant variation of the dissipative influence of collisions with the time of appearance of the echo, featuring a decoherence process that is well reproduced by the nonsecular quantum master equation for modeling molecular collisions. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-12-18 /pmc/articles/PMC6920365/ /pubmed/31852905 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13706-0 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Ma, Junyang
Zhang, Haisu
Lavorel, Bruno
Billard, Franck
Hertz, Edouard
Wu, Jian
Boulet, Christian
Hartmann, Jean-Michel
Faucher, Olivier
Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit
title Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit
title_full Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit
title_fullStr Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit
title_full_unstemmed Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit
title_short Observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit
title_sort observing collisions beyond the secular approximation limit
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6920365/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31852905
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-13706-0
work_keys_str_mv AT majunyang observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT zhanghaisu observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT lavorelbruno observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT billardfranck observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT hertzedouard observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT wujian observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT bouletchristian observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT hartmannjeanmichel observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit
AT faucherolivier observingcollisionsbeyondthesecularapproximationlimit