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Media type:
E-Article
Title:
Quantum dephasing of a two-state system by a nonequilibrium harmonic oscillator
Contributor:
Martens, Craig C.
Published:
AIP Publishing, 2013
Published in:
The Journal of Chemical Physics, 139 (2013) 2
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1063/1.4811219
ISSN:
0021-9606;
1089-7690
Origination:
Footnote:
Description:
In this paper, we investigate coherent quantum dynamics in a nonequilibrium environment. We focus on a two-state quantum system strongly coupled to a single classical environmental oscillator, and explore the effect of nonstationary statistical properties of the oscillator on the quantum evolution. A simple nonequilibrium model, consisting of an oscillator with a well-defined initial phase which undergoes subsequent diffusion, is introduced and studied. Approximate but accurate analytic expressions for the evolution of the off-diagonal density matrix element of the quantum system are derived in the second-order cumulant approximation. The effect of the initial phase choice on the subsequent quantum evolution is quantified. It is observed that the initial phase can have a significant effect on the preservation of coherence on short time scales, suggesting this variable as a control parameter for optimizing coherence in many-body quantum systems.