Coherence and Decoherence in Nuclear Collisions

“Reactions of heavy nuclei involve a massive dynamical rearrangement of quantum systems with many degrees of freedom. Fusing nuclei, isolated from external environment, are proving to be a unique tool to probe the complex interactions of quantum systems. Such studies require high precision measurements, which were pioneered at the Australian National University through the development of highly efficient and sensitive detection systems.  Recent measurements show that tunnelling probabilities are dramatically altered due to quantum coherence and de-coherence effects. These and other measurements bring into relief the inadequacies of the current coherent models of nuclear collisions. I will discuss the need to include the loss of coherence by drawing parallels with other areas of physics where understanding the effects of decoherence is becoming increasingly important as technology advances towards the smaller scale.”