Activation-like processes at zero temperature

Details Activation-like processes at zero temperature Activation-like processes at zero temperature

2003-03-12

arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0303075v1

Int. J. Theor. Phys. 42, 1257-1280 (2003)

Physics

Quantum Physics

24 pages, 1 figure. To appear in the proceedings of the 7th Peyresq meeting

Scientific paper

10.1023/A:1025758616106

We examine the possibility that a metastable quantum state could experiment a phenomenon similar to thermal activation but at zero temperature. In order to do that we study the real-time dynamics of the reduced Wigner function in a simple open quantum system: an anharmonic oscillator with a cubic potential linearly interacting with an environment of harmonic oscillators. Our results suggest that this activation-like phenomenon exists indeed as a consequence of the fluctuations induced by the environment and that its associated decay rate is comparable to the tunneling rate as computed by the instanton method, at least for the particular potential of the system and the distribution of frequencies for the environment considered in this paper. However, we are not able to properly deal with the term which leads to tunneling in closed quantum systems, and a definite conclusion cannot be reached until tunneling and activation-like effects are considered simultaneously.

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