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.