Talk:Quantum Zeno effect

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dima 11:27, 18 March 2006 (UTC) I suggest the definition:

In general, the Zeno effect can be defined as
Class of phenomena when a transition is suppressed by some interaction which allows the interpretation of the final state in terms of ‘‘a transition has not yet occured’’ or ‘‘a transition already occurred’’. In quantum mechanics, such an interaction is called ‘‘measurement’’ because its result can be interpreted in terms of classical mechanics. Frequent measurement prohibits the transition.

If colleagues agree, let us put it a the main page.

my god! mnemonic 13:31, 2004 May 31 (UTC)

I think "This occurs because every measurement causes the wavefunction to "collapse" to a pure eigenstate of the measurement basis." this is not correct. It should be "This occurs because each monitoring of the particle or system causes it to reset to its initial wavefunction" In fact the effect of a measurement in quantum mechanics causes it to collapse. However, if a quantum mechanical system collapses to one of its eigenstates, the system then becomes classical, in other words other possibilities are lost. The quantum zeno effect does not tell us that a decaying, i.e. unstable, will collapse to one of its eigenstates, it tells us that the possibility of finding a particle decayed in an interval of a time scale will decrease with the frequency of monitoring it whether it decayed or not. A continuous observation will make this possibility zero.

1 Sounds like original research
2 Anyone looked at this?
3 Connection with Turing?
4 aplication
5 Analogy

[edit] Sounds like original research

 The reason we can't use the Zeno effect as a science-fiction-like stasis field 
 to freeze large objects is because there is no way to couple them so strongly to 
 the environment. Ordinary molecular forces are clearly insufficient. A much easier
 way to freeze a large object would be to cool it down to near absolute zero. At
 absolute zero the system is in its ground state and there is no macroscopic 
 evolution. This is known as the third law of thermodynamics. Note that the Zeno 
 effect allows a system to be frozen into an excited state, not just the ground
 state, so in some sense it is more versatile."

Can we get some references on this? 129.7.56.177 01:02, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I just went ahead and removed that. Now I'm wondering upon this business:

 In reality, collapse of the wavefunction is not a discrete, instantaneous event...

Where "in reality" does anyone discourse on the process of wavefunction collapse? 129.7.57.183 00:24, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Anyone looked at this?

http://www.physorg.com/news11087.html

Practical application of the QZE. I've checked around and it doesn't appear to be anything other than what it claims.

[edit] Connection with Turing?

Apparently Alan Turing had something to say about zeno-like paradoxes.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing/#8 …‘the Turing Paradox’; it is easy to show using standard theory that if a system start in an eigenstate of some observable, and measurements are made of that observable N times a second, then, even if the state is not a stationary one, the probability that the system will be in the same state after, say, 1 second, tends to one as N tends to infinity; i.e. that continual observation will prevent motion. Alan and I tackled one or two theoretical physicists with this, and they rather pooh-poohed it by saying that continual observation is not possible. But there is nothing in the standard books (eg Dirac's) to this effect, so that at least the paradox shows up an inadequacy of Quantum Theory as usually presented.

Has anyone explored this connection? 129.7.57.101 02:14, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] aplication

We need a short paragraph about application of Zeno effect. with reference Some enhancement of a chemical reaction, or some advanced detector based on the Zeno effect..