Scheme to probe the decoherence of a macroscopic object

We propose a quantum optical version of Schrödinger’s famous gedanken experiment in which the state of a microscopic system (a cavity field) becomes entangled with and disentangled from the state of a massive object (a movable mirror). Despite the fact that a mixture of Schrödinger cat states is produced during the evolution (due to the fact that the macroscopic mirror starts off in a thermal state), this setup allows us to systematically probe the rules by which a superposition of spatially separated states of a macroscopic object decoheres. The parameter regime required to test environment-induced decoherence models is found to be close to those currently realizable, while that required to detect gravitationally induced collapse is well beyond current technology.