  The paradigm of Schr\"{o}dinger's cat illustrates how quantum states preclude
the assignment of definite properties to a macroscopic object (realism). In
this work we develop a method to investigate the indefiniteness of cat states
using currently available cold atom technology. The method we propose uses the
observation of a statistical distribution to demonstrate the macroscopic
distinction between dead and alive states, and uses the determination of the
interferometric sensitivity (Fisher information) to detect the indefiniteness
of the cat's vital status. We show how combining the two observations can
provide information about the structure of the quantum state without the need
for full quantum state tomography, and propose a measure of the indefiniteness
based on this structure. We test this method using a cat state proposed by
Gordon and Savage [Phys. Rev. A 59, 4623 (1999)] which is dynamically produced
from a coherent state. As a control, we consider a set of states produced using
the same dynamical procedure acting on an initial thermal distribution.
Numerically simulating our proposed method, we show that as the temperature of
this initial state is increased, the produced state undergoes a quantum to
classical crossover where the indefiniteness of the cat's vital status is lost,
while the macroscopic distinction between dead and alive states of the cat is
maintained.
