Impossibility of distant indirect measurement of the quantum Zeno effect

M. Hotta, M. Morikawa

Published 2003-10-14, updated 2004-08-03Version 2

We critically study the possibility of quantum Zeno effect for indirect measurements. If the detector is prepared to detect the emitted signal from the core system, and the detector does not reflect the signal back to the core system, then we can prove the decay probability of the system is not changed by the continuous measurement of the signal and the quantum Zeno effect never takes place. This argument also applies to the quantum Zeno effect for accelerated two-level systems, unstable particle decay, etc.