Initial value formulation of a quantum damped harmonic oscillator

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Agarwal, Nishant, Chu, Yi-Zen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Agarwal, Nishant
Chu, Yi-Zen
author_facet Agarwal, Nishant
Chu, Yi-Zen
contents The in-in formalism and its influence functional generalization are widely used to describe the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of unitary and open quantum systems, respectively. In this paper, we build on these techniques to develop an effective theory of a quantum damped harmonic oscillator and use it to study initial state-dependence, decoherence, and thermalization. We first consider a Gaussian initial state and quadratic influence functional and obtain general equations for the Green's functions of the oscillator. We solve the equations in the specific case of time-local dissipation and use the resulting Green's functions to obtain the purity and unequal-time two-point correlations of the oscillator. We find that the dynamics must include a non-vanishing noise term to yield physical results for the purity and that the oscillator decoheres in time such that the late-time density operator is thermal. We show that the frequency spectrum or unequal-time correlations can, however, distinguish between the damped oscillator and an isolated oscillator in thermal equilibrium, and obtain a generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation for the damped oscillator. We briefly consider time-nonlocal dissipation as well, to show that the fluctuation-dissipation relation is satisfied for a specific choice of dissipation kernels. Lastly, we develop a double in-out path integral approach to go beyond Gaussian initial states and show that our equal-time results for time-local dissipation are in fact non-perturbative in the initial state.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_04829
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Initial value formulation of a quantum damped harmonic oscillator
Agarwal, Nishant
Chu, Yi-Zen
High Energy Physics - Theory
Statistical Mechanics
Quantum Physics
The in-in formalism and its influence functional generalization are widely used to describe the out-of-equilibrium dynamics of unitary and open quantum systems, respectively. In this paper, we build on these techniques to develop an effective theory of a quantum damped harmonic oscillator and use it to study initial state-dependence, decoherence, and thermalization. We first consider a Gaussian initial state and quadratic influence functional and obtain general equations for the Green's functions of the oscillator. We solve the equations in the specific case of time-local dissipation and use the resulting Green's functions to obtain the purity and unequal-time two-point correlations of the oscillator. We find that the dynamics must include a non-vanishing noise term to yield physical results for the purity and that the oscillator decoheres in time such that the late-time density operator is thermal. We show that the frequency spectrum or unequal-time correlations can, however, distinguish between the damped oscillator and an isolated oscillator in thermal equilibrium, and obtain a generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation for the damped oscillator. We briefly consider time-nonlocal dissipation as well, to show that the fluctuation-dissipation relation is satisfied for a specific choice of dissipation kernels. Lastly, we develop a double in-out path integral approach to go beyond Gaussian initial states and show that our equal-time results for time-local dissipation are in fact non-perturbative in the initial state.
title Initial value formulation of a quantum damped harmonic oscillator
topic High Energy Physics - Theory
Statistical Mechanics
Quantum Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.04829