Date of Award

Spring 2026

Language

English

Embargo Period

5-5-2026

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

College/School/Department

Department of Physics

Program

Physics

First Advisor

Philip Goyal

Committee Members

Daniel Robbins, Jonathan Petruccelli

Subject Categories

Quantum Physics

Abstract

The parameters that govern the evolution of a quantum system can be determined by making measurements on an ensemble of identically-prepared systems. However, there are times when we are unable to recreate the experiment and want to measure physical parameters from just a single particle. For example, we may wish to measure the mass to charge ratio of a particle based on its track through a bubble chamber. Recent research [11, 12, 16] has suggested that classical behavior, defined as phenomenon that does not violate macroscopic realism, does not arise simply as a consequence of a quantum system of many particles, but as a result of performing coarse-graining of measurements upon a quantum system. My work examines how physically-significant parameters associated with quantum systems can be measured via repeated coarse-grained measurements on a single copy of a quantum system. Specifically, I am looking to estimate the angular frequency of a quantum spin state undergoing Larmor precession using coarse-grained measurements on the particle’s spin. I use a computer simulation of the spin and perform Bayesian analysis on the simulated data to extract the relevant information. I show that parameters of quantum system can be successfully extracted using coarse-grained measurements.

License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download

Share

COinS