Quantum dissipation in unbounded systems.

Abstract

In recent years trajectory based methodologies have become increasingly popular for evaluating the time evolution of quantum systems. A revival of the de Broglie--Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics has spawned several such techniques for examining quantum dynamics from a hydrodynamic perspective. Using techniques similar to those found in computational fluid dynamics one can construct the wave function of a quantum system at any time from the trajectories of a discrete ensemble of hydrodynamic fluid elements (Bohm particles) which evolve according to nonclassical equations of motion. Until very recently these schemes have been limited to conservative systems. In this paper, we present our methodology for including the effects of a thermal environment into the hydrodynamic formulation of quantum dynamics. We derive hydrodynamic equations of motion from the Caldeira-Leggett master equation for the reduced density matrix and give a brief overview of our computational scheme that incorporates an adaptive Lagrangian mesh. Our applications focus upon the dissipative dynamics of open unbounded quantum systems. Using both the Wigner phase space representation and the linear entropy, we probe the breakdown of the Markov approximation of the bath dynamics at low temperatures. We suggest a criteria for rationalizing the validity of the Markov approximation in open unbound systems and discuss decoherence, energy relaxation, and quantum/classical correspondence in the context of the Bohmian paths.