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arXiv:2503.05475 · Physical Review A

Desorption-induced decoherence of nanoparticle motion

Jonas Schäfer, Benjamin A. Stickler, Klaus Hornberger

Published Jul 7, 2025• 2 citations
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Abstract

We derive the quantum master equation predicting how the translational and rotational dynamics of a nanoparticle is affected by the emission of surface adsorbates. This is motivated by recent experiments which prepared the motion of internally hot silica particles in the deep quantum regime. In the limit of a well localized nanoparticle the rotranslational dynamics can be characterized by diffusion rates in quantitative agreement with classical expectations. The theory is also suited to describe the decoherence effect of outgassing and sublimation.

DOI
10.1103/4yxn-48c6

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We derive the quantum master equation predicting how the translational and rotational dynamics of a nanoparticle is affected by the emission of surface adsorbates. This is motivated by recent experiments which prepared the motion of internally hot silica particles in the deep quantum regime. In the limit of a well localized nanoparticle the rotranslational dynamics can be characterized by diffusion rates in quantitative agreement with classical expectations. The theory is also suited to describe the decoherence effect of outgassing and sublimation.
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The equation for the quantum motion of a Brownian particle in a gaseous environment is derived by means of S-matrix theory. This quantum version of the linear Boltzmann equation accounts nonperturbatively for the quantum effects of the scattering dynamics and describes decoherence and dissipation in a unified framework. As a completely positive master equation it incorporates both the known equation for an infinitely massive Brownian particle and the classical linear Boltzmann equation as limiting cases.
We show how to describe the diffusion of the quantized angular momentum vector of an arbitrarily shaped rigid rotor as induced by its collisional interaction with an environment.We present the general form of the Lindblad-type master equation and relate it to the orientational decoherence of an asymmetric nanoparticle in the limit of small anisotropies.The corresponding diffusion coefficients are derived for gas particles scattering off large molecules and for ambient photons scattering off dielectric particles, using the elastic scattering amplitudes.
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