Telegraph signals as a solution to the time dependent Schr\"odinger equation

Abstract

A particle switching between two sides of a symmetric system in interaction with a continuum exhibits a telegraph-like time development without the need of the Born-Bohr principle of reduction on eigenstates of the measuring equipment. The origin of the telegraph signal is a very weak local coupling of the particle to the continuum which is connected with an enormous slow down of the particle motion. The proposed mechanism might serve as a useful simple model for studying decoherence effects due to coupling to the environment.