Dynamics of barrier penetration in thermal medium: exact result for inverted harmonic oscillator

Abstract

Time evolution of quantum tunneling is studied when the tunneling system is immersed in thermal medium. We analyze in detail the behavior of the system after integrating out the environment. Exact result for the inverted harmonic oscillator of the tunneling potential is derived and the barrier penetration factor is explicitly worked out as a function of time. Quantum mechanical formula without environment is modifed both by the potential renormalization effect and by a dynamical factor which may appreciably differ from the previously obtained one in the time range of 1/(curvature at the top of potential barrier).

arXiv comment30 pages, LATEX file with 11 PS figures

References in corpus (4)

• Progress in Electroweak Baryogenesis
• Alternative Derivation of the Hu-Paz-Zhang Master Equation for Quantum Brownian Motion
• Quantum Dissipation and Decay in Medium
• Quantum Dissipation in Open Harmonic Systems: Operator Solution

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• Time Evolution of Tunneling in Thermal Medium -- Environment-driven Excited Tunneling --