Zeno effect on the Debye-Waller factor.

The Debye-Waller factor may be close to one, hence ineffective for decoherence, if it is caused by high-frequency vibrations. This appears as a manifestation of the Zeno effect, where the quantum properties of a system do not deteriorate (or do so very slowly) if the system is subjected to frequently repeated interactions. In the case of atom-surface scattering, the decoherence time is shown to be long for high frequencies, such that the oscillation period is short in comparison to the duration of a collision. For a periodic perturbation the restoration of coherence, in the case where many oscillation periods take place during a prescribed time, is shown.