How to observe a coherent superposition of an atom and a molecule

Abstract

We demonstrate that it is possible, in principle, to perform a Ramsey-type interference experiment to exhibit a coherent superposition of a single atom and a diatomic molecule. This gedanken experiment, based on the techniques of Aharonov and Susskind [Phys. Rev. 155, 1428 (1967)], explicitly violates the commonly-accepted superselection rule that forbids coherent superpositions of eigenstates of differing atom number. This interference experiment makes use of a Bose-Einstein condensate as a reference frame with which to perform the coherent operations analogous to Ramsey pulses. We also investigate an analogous gedanken experiment to exhibit a coherent superposition of a single boson and a fermion, violating the commonly-accepted superselection rule forbidding coherent superpositions of states of differing particle statistics; in this case, the reference frame is realized by a multi-mode state of many fermions. This latter case reproduces all of the relevant features of Ramsey interferometry, including Ramsey fringes over many repetitions of the experiment. However, the apparent inability of this proposed experiment to produce well-defined relative phases between two distinct systems each described by a coherent superposition of a boson and a fermion demonstrates that there are additional, outstanding requirements to fully ``lift'' the univalence superselection rule.