Electric current in a translation invariant environment

Abstract

The master equation for the reduced density matrix of a charged particle interacting with a translation invariant weakly coupled environment is considered. The electric current is renormalized by the system-environment interaction, leading to a direct signature of the environment in the bremsstrahlung. The general solution is given in the absence of the external electromagnetic field and the spread and the decoherence of a wave packet are followed. The increased complexity and importance of the boundary conditions for the density matrix are pointed out.

36 pages, 1 figures, final version, to appear in Phys. Rev. D