45 research outputs found
How much time does a measurement take?
We consider the problem of measurement using the Lindblad equation, which
allows the introduction of time in the interaction between the measured system
and the measurement apparatus. We use analytic results, valid for weak
system-environment coupling, obtained for a two-level system in contact with a
measurer (Markovian interaction) and a thermal bath (non-Markovian
interaction), where the measured observable may or may not commute with the
system-environment interaction. Analysing the behavior of the coherence, which
tends to a value asymptotically close to zero, we obtain an expression for the
time of measurement which depends only on the system-measurer coupling, and
which does not depend on whether the observable commutes with the system-bath
interaction. The behavior of the coherences in the case of strong
system-environment coupling, found numerically, indicates that an increase in
this coupling decreases the measurement time, thus allowing our expression to
be considered the upper limit for the duration of the process.Comment: REVISED VERSION: 17 pages, 2 figure