Study of the Coherence and Entanglement of Macroscopic Quantum Interfering Alternatives

An approach has been proposed to calculate the coherence and interference characteristics of macroscopic quantum systems. A general method of the analysis of two-particle quantum systems based on the Schmidt decomposition has been presented to analyze quantum entanglement between the system and environment, as well as the coherence of interfering alternatives. Simple relations have been obtained between the coherence, interference visibility, and Schmidt number. The developed method has been applied to multimode quantum states of Schrödinger’s cat.