Als. Silva et al., Production of two-Fock states superpositions from even circular states andtheir decoherence, PHYS LETT A, 282(4-5), 2001, pp. 235-244
We analyze the even circular state (ECS - a superposition of N coherent sta
tes \alpha > uniformly distributed with equal amplitudes on a circle) that
can be engineered for the center of mass vibrational motion of a trapped io
n. As a result of interference effects in phase space this state shows inte
resting features: depending on the value of loll it may show up as the vacu
um state \0 >, the number state \N > or as two-state superposition, \0 > \N >, \N > + \2N >. Here we discuss the statistics of the ECS, the probabil
ity for its production, its evolution under the effects of the environment
and decoherence. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.