Semiclassical theory of vibrational energy relaxation

A theory of vibrational energy relaxation based on a semiclassical treatment of the quantum master equation is presented. Using new results on the semiclassical expansion of dipole matrix elements, we show that in the classical limit the master equation reduces to the Zwanzig energy diffusion equation. The leading quantum corrections are determined and discussed for the harmonic and Morse potentials.Comment: See also at http://vesta.physik.uni-freiburg.de/www/dqs/sfb.htm

The Hydrogen Atom in Strong Electric Fields: Summation of the Weak Field Series Expansion

The order dependent mapping method, its convergence has recently been proven for the energy eigenvalue of the anharmonic oscillator, is applied to re-sum the standard perturbation series for Stark effect of the hydrogen atom. We perform a numerical experiment up to the fiftieth order of the perturbation expansion. A simple mapping suggested by the analytic structure and the strong field behavior gives an excellent agreement with the exact value for an intermediate range of the electric field, $0.03\leq E\leq0.25$. The imaginary part of the energy (the decay width) as well as the real part of the energy is reproduced from the standard perturbation series.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure

Calculation of the Characteristic Functions of Anharmonic Oscillators

The energy levels of quantum systems are determined by quantization conditions. For one-dimensional anharmonic oscillators, one can transform the Schrodinger equation into a Riccati form, i.e., in terms of the logarithmic derivative of the wave function. A perturbative expansion of the logarithmic derivative of the wave function can easily be obtained. The Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization condition can be expressed in terms of a contour integral around the poles of the logarithmic derivative. Its functional form is B_m(E,g) = n + 1/2, where B is a characteristic function of the anharmonic oscillator of degree m, E is the resonance energy, and g is the coupling constant. A recursive scheme can be devised which facilitates the evaluation of higher-order Wentzel-Kramers-Brioullin (WKB) approximants. The WKB expansion of the logarithmic derivative of the wave function has a cut in the tunneling region. The contour integral about the tunneling region yields the instanton action plus corrections, summarized in a second characteristic function A_m(E,g). The evaluation of A_m(E,g) by the method of asymptotic matching is discussed for the case of the cubic oscillator of degree m=3.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX; three further typographical errors correcte

Exact solution of the Hu-Paz-Zhang master equation

The Hu-Paz-Zhang equation is a master equation for an oscillator coupled to a linear passive bath. It is exact within the assumption that the oscillator and bath are initially uncoupled . Here an exact general solution is obtained in the form of an expression for the Wigner function at time t in terms of the initial Wigner function. The result is applied to the motion of a Gaussian wave packet and to that of a pair of such wave packets. A serious divergence arising from the assumption of an initially uncoupled state is found to be due to the zero-point oscillations of the bath and not removed in a cutoff model. As a consequence, worthwhile results for the equation can only be obtained in the high temperature limit, where zero-point oscillations are neglected. In that limit closed form expressions for wave packet spreading and attenuation of coherence are obtained. These results agree within a numerical factor with those appearing in the literature, which apply for the case of a particle at zero temperature that is suddenly coupled to a bath at high temperature. On the other hand very different results are obtained for the physically consistent case in which the initial particle temperature is arranged to coincide with that of the bath

Precise variational tunneling rates for anharmonic oscillator with g<0

We systematically improve the recent variational calculation of the imaginary part of the ground state energy of the quartic anharmonic oscillator. The results are extremely accurate as demonstrated by deriving, from the calculated imaginary part, all perturbation coefficients via a dispersion relation and reproducing the exact values with a relative error of less than $10^{-5}$. A comparison is also made with results of a Schr\"{o}dinger calculation based on the complex rotation method.Comment: PostScrip

Variational Interpolation Algorithm between Weak- and Strong-Coupling Expansions

For many physical quantities, theory supplies weak- and strong-coupling expansions of the types $\sum a_n \alpha ^n$ and \alpha ^p\sum b_n (\alpha^{-2/q) ^n, respectively. Either or both of these may have a zero radius of convergence. We present a simple interpolation algorithm which rapidly converges for an increasing number of known expansion coefficients. The accuracy is illustrated by calculating the ground state energies of the anharmonic oscillator using only the leading large-order coefficient $b_0$ (apart from the trivial expansion coefficent $a_0=1/2$). The errors are less than 0.5 for all g. The algorithm is applied to find energy and mass of the Fr\"ohlich-Feynman polaron. Our mass is quite different from Feynman's variational approach.Comment: PostScript, http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/kleinert.htm

Observing Quantum Tunneling in Perturbation Series

We apply Borel resummation method to the conventional perturbation series of ground state energy in a metastable potential, $V(x)=x^2/2-gx^4/4$. We observe numerically that the discontinuity of Borel transform reproduces the imaginary part of energy eigenvalue, i.e., total decay width due to the quantum tunneling. The agreement with the exact numerical value is remarkable in the whole tunneling regime 0.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures. Phyzzx, Tables.tex, The final version to appear in Phys. Lett.

The double Caldeira-Leggett model: Derivation and solutions of the master equations, reservoir-induced interactions and decoherence

In this paper we analyze the double Caldeira-Leggett model: the path integral approach to two interacting dissipative harmonic oscillators. Assuming a general form of the interaction between the oscillators, we consider two different situations: i) when each oscillator is coupled to its own reservoir, and ii) when both oscillators are coupled to a common reservoir. After deriving and solving the master equation for each case, we analyze the decoherence process of particular entanglements in the positional space of both oscillators. To analyze the decoherence mechanism we have derived a general decay function for the off-diagonal peaks of the density matrix, which applies both to a common and separate reservoirs. We have also identified the expected interaction between the two dissipative oscillators induced by their common reservoir. Such reservoir-induced interaction, which gives rise to interesting collective damping effects, such as the emergence of relaxation- and decoherence-free subspaces, is shown to be blurred by the high-temperature regime considered in this study. However, we find that different interactions between the dissipative oscillators, described by rotating or counter-rotating terms, result in different decay rates for the interference terms of the density matrix.Comment: 42 pages, 7 figures, new discussion added, typos adde

Stochastic Collapse and Decoherence of a Non-Dissipative Forced Harmonic Oscillator

Careful monitoring of harmonically bound (or as a limiting case, free) masses is the basis of current and future gravitational wave detectors, and of nanomechanical devices designed to access the quantum regime. We analyze the effects of stochastic localization models for state vector reduction, and of related models for environmental decoherence, on such systems, focusing our analysis on the non-dissipative forced harmonic oscillator, and its free mass limit. We derive an explicit formula for the time evolution of the expectation of a general operator in the presence of stochastic reduction or environmentally induced decoherence, for both the non-dissipative harmonic oscillator and the free mass. In the case of the oscillator, we also give a formula for the time evolution of the matrix element of the stochastic expectation density matrix between general coherent states. We show that the stochastic expectation of the variance of a Hermitian operator in any unraveling of the stochastic process is bounded by the variance computed from the stochastic expectation of the density matrix, and we develop a formal perturbation theory for calculating expectation values of operators within any unraveling. Applying our results to current gravitational wave interferometer detectors and nanomechanical systems, we conclude that the deviations from quantum mechanics predicted by the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model of state vector reduction are at least five orders of magnitude below the relevant standard quantum limits for these experiments. The proposed LISA gravitational wave detector will be two orders of magnitude away from the capability of observing an effect.Comment: TeX; 34 page