Quantum erasure in the presence of a thermal bath: The effects of system–environment microscopic correlations

• A setup aiming at the observation of quantum erasure is proposed in the cavity quantum electrodynamics domain.
• The action of the environment on the field modes that store the which-way information is computed.
• The effectiveness of the process of erasure depends on the class of states chosen to perform it.
• The setup permits the measurement of cross decay rates.

We investigate the role of the environment in a quantum erasure setup in the cavity quantum electrodynamics domain. Two slightly different schemes are analyzed. We show that the effects of the environment vary when a scheme is exchanged for another. This can be used to estimate the macroscopic parameters related to the system–environment microscopic correlations.