A new approach to study the Zeno effect for a macroscopic quantum system under frequent interactions with a harmonic environment

Abstract

Quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno behaviors of a two-level macroscopic quantum system in interaction with a harmonic environment are studied using the perturbation theory. The system-environment interactions are applied in a successive and step-by-step way. A new expression for the probability of surviving the macrosystem in its initial state, after the Nth interaction step, is derived through a different method of calculation. It is shown that multiple transitions between Zeno and anti-Zeno behaviors can be found in our approach. We have shown that in addition to the environmental parameters like the Ohmicity, the macroscopic trait of the system also has a notable effect on the decay rate Γ(τ). Moreover, we have investigated how the decay rate Γ(τ) varies as the parameter of the macroscopicity of the system h˜ changes continuously in a given domain.