Decoherence, tunneling and noise-activation in a double-potential well at high and zero temperature

Abstract

We study the effects of the environment on tunneling in an open system described by a static double-well potential. We describe the evolution of a quantum state localized in one of the minima of the potential at $t=0$, both in the limits of high and zero environment temperature. We show that the evolution of the system can be summarized in terms of three main physical phenomena, namely decoherence, quantum tunneling and noise-induced activation, and we obtain analytical estimates for the corresponding time-scales. These analytical predictions are confirmed by large-scale numerical simulations, providing a detailed picture of the main stages of the evolution and of the relevant dynamical processes.

Version to appear in Phys. Rev. E. 15 pages, 12 figures (low quality due to upload size limitations). Good quality figures in a pdf file can be downloaded from http://www.df.uba.ar/users/lombardo/tunnel

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Cited by in corpus (14)

• Dynamical Realization of Macroscopic Superposition States of Cold Bosons in a Tilted Double Well
• Environment-dependent dissipation in quantum Brownian motion
• Vacuum Radiation Pressure Fluctuations and Barrier Penetration
• Real time approach to tunneling in open quantum systems: decoherence and anomalous diffusion
• Decoherence of domains and defects at phase transitions
• Noise-induced energy excitation by a general environment
• Particle in a box with a time-dependent $\delta$-function potential
• Collapse times for attractive Bose-Einstein condensates
• Visibility Fringe Reduction Due to Noise-Induced Effects: Microscopic Approach to Interference Experiments
• Decoherence in composite quantum open systems: the effectiveness of unstable degrees of freedom
• Metastability Driven by Soft Quantum Fluctuation Modes
• Macroscopic tunneling, decoherence and noise-induced activation
• A Magnus approximation approach to harmonic systems with time-dependent frequencies
• Finite Temperature Theory of Metastable Anharmonic Potentials