Investigation of the Leggett-Garg Inequality for Precessing Nuclear Spins

Vikram Athalye, Soumya Singha Roy, and T. S. Mahesh
Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 130402 – Published 19 September 2011
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Abstract

We report experimental implementation of a protocol for testing the Leggett-Garg inequality (LGI) for nuclear spins precessing in an external magnetic field. The implementation involves certain controlled operations, performed in parallel on pairs of spin-1/2 nuclei (target and probe) from molecules of a nuclear magnetic resonance ensemble, which enable evaluation of temporal correlations from an LG string. Our experiment demonstrates violation of the LGI for time intervals between successive measurements, over which the effects of relaxation on the quantum state of target spin are negligible. Further, it is observed that the temporal correlations decay, and the same target spin appears to display macrorealistic behavior consistent with LGI.

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  • Received 12 February 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.130402

© 2011 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Vikram Athalye1,*, Soumya Singha Roy2,†, and T. S. Mahesh2,‡

  • 1Department of Applied Physics, Cummins College of Engineering, Karvenagar, Pune 411052, India
  • 2NMR Research Center, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune 411008, India

  • *vikathalye@gmail.com
  • ss.roy@iiserpune.ac.in
  • mahesh.ts@iiserpune.ac.in

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Issue

Vol. 107, Iss. 13 — 23 September 2011

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