Abstract
Despite their inextricable quantum mechanical nature, events at a high energy particle collider experiment typically have very few unambiguous quantum signatures, due the type of data and the manner in which they are collected. We present a general analysis of one feature of quantum mechanics, interference between two orthogonal states on Hilbert space, projected onto the basis of states that span a collider experiment observable space. Identification of quantum interference can be considered as a binary discrimination between a pure state and a mixed state, and we introduce several statistical measures that quantify the amplitude of interference in a pure state with respect to a mixed state that exhibits no interference. Two explicit examples from particle physics are provided to demonstrate features of the general formalism.
- Received 24 January 2022
- Accepted 26 April 2022
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.105.096012
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
Published by the American Physical Society