  An experimental study of NMR spin decoherence in nematic liquid crystals (LC)
is presented. Decoherence dynamics can be put in evidence by means of
refocusing experiments of the dipolar interactions. The experimental technique
used in this work is based on the MREV8 pulse sequence. The aim of the work is
to detect the main features of the Irreversible Quantum Decoherence (IQD) in
LC, on the basis of the theory presented by the authors recently. The focus is
laid on experimentally probing the eigen-selection process in the intermediate
time scale, between quantum interference of a closed system and thermalization,
as a signature of the IQD of the open quantum system, as well as on quantifying
the effects of non-idealities as possible sources of signal decays which could
mask the intrinsic IQD. In order to contrast experiment and theory, the theory
was adapted to obtain the IQD function corresponding to the MREV8 reversion
experiments. Non-idealities of the experimental setting are analysed in detail
within this framework and their effects on the observed signal decay are
numerically estimated. It is found that, though these non-idealities could in
principle affect the evolution of the spin dynamics, their influence can be
mitigated and they do not present the characteristic behavior of the IQD. As
unique characteristic of the IQD, the experimental results clearly show the
occurrence of eigen-selectivity in the intermediate timescale, in complete
agreement with the theoretical predictions. We conclude that the
eigen-selection effect is the fingerprint of IQD associated with a quantum open
spin system in LC. Besides, these features of the results account for the
quasi-equilibrium states of the spin system, which were observed previously in
these mesophases, and lead to conclude that the quasi-equilibrium is a definite
stage of the spin dynamics during its evolution towards equilibrium
