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AIP conference proceedings

Relativistic Stochastic Processes: A review

Fabrice Debbasch

Published Jan 1, 2006• 16 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We discuss and compare all relativistic stochastic processes existing in the litterature. In particular, the Relativistic Ornstein‐Uhlenbeck Process is presented in detail, as is the intrinsic Brownian Motion studied by Franchi and Le Jan. The Relativistic Brownian Motion of Dunkel and Hänggi is also reviewed, together with a model introduced by Oron and Horwitz. We finally suggest some possible future developements of the current research.

DOI
10.1063/1.2399614

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We discuss and compare all relativistic stochastic processes existing in the litterature. In particular, the Relativistic Ornstein‐Uhlenbeck Process is presented in detail, as is the intrinsic Brownian Motion studied by Franchi and Le Jan. The Relativistic Brownian Motion of Dunkel and Hänggi is also reviewed, together with a model introduced by Oron and Horwitz. We finally suggest some possible future developements of the current research.
Introduction The apparent generality of the title to this chapter is appropriately reduced by sufficiently precisely defining the terms used. We have in mind the natural extension to quantum mechanical settings of the ideas usually covered in a discussion of stochastic processes in classical mechanical settings. In classical mechanical settings, the fundamental process is Brownian motion, which describes the influence of external fluctuating forces on a small particle. The mathematical apparatus developed for the study of Brownian motion has been generalized and applied to irreversible thermodynamics (Onsager and Machlup, 1953), fluctuating hydrodynamics (Fox and Uhlenbeck, 1970), light scattering from fluids and mixtures (Berne and Pecora, 1976) and chemical reactions (McQuarrie and Keizer, 1981). In each case, the stochastic process involves fluctuations generated by thermal motions. We are not considering the stochastic trajectories (chaos) of classically deterministic motion in non-linear systems (Lichtenberg and Lieberman, 1983), which is an entirely separate context for stochastic processes. Our goal in this chapter is to study the effects of thermal fluctuations in quantum mechanical settings. Therefore, we exclude a discussion of interpreting quantum mechanics as a classical stochastic motion (Nelson, 1966), an idea which should have been put to rest by Grabert, Hänggi and Talkner (1979). We also exclude a discussion of quantum chaos, which is currently a very active area of research (Zaslavsky, 1981). Just as Brownian motion provides the paradigm for stochastic processes in classical mechanical settings, the Anderson–Kubo oscillator (Anderson, 1954; Kubo, 1954; Kubo, Toda and Nashitsume, 1985) is the paradigm for stochastic processes in quantum mechanical settings.
Abstract Feynman developed the path integral approach to quantum mechanics as an alternative to wave or matrix mechanics that has found fruitful implementation in quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, and statistical physics. Despite its many successes, the usual Feynman path integral formalism suffers from a lack of mathematical rigor. Questions of mathematical rigor still exist, but Mark Kac provided a rigorous path integral approach to quantum mechanics. The Kac formulation for quantum systems is given in terms of Wiener measure for a path integral and employs the Brownian motion distribution. In this paper, we review the Feynman–Kac approach and other stochastic processes related to Brownian motion. We also give an account of the successes and difficulties we faced during our journey through numerical path integral problems involved in physics.
where m is the particle mass at rest, c is the speed of light, p is the particle momentum and U is a potential. The root in Eq. (1) complicates substantially the way of quantizing the relativistic motion. In the literature there are two important solutions of this problem: the Klein-Gordon and Dirac equations. Their complex mathematical structures and some problems with definition of the probability density make it difficult to extend these equations for description of relativistic quantum Brownian motion. Moreover, it is not clear if the non-relativistic energy ˆ t E i   and momentum p i   operators, used in quantizing of Eq. (1), are valid in the relativistic quantum mechanics as well. The present paper proposes an alternative approach via a relativistic Wigner-Klein-Kramers equation. The quantum Brownian motion is described by the Madelung quantum hydrodynamics [4] coupled to the Breit-Fermi Hamiltonian. According to the relativistic dynamics the stochastic Langevin equation for a classical relativistic particle moving in a classical non-relativistic environment acquires the form
We unify Brownian motion and quantum mechanics in a single mathematical framework. In particular, we show that non-relativistic quantum mechanics of a single spinless particle on a flat space can be described by a Wiener process that is rotated in the complex plane. We then extend this theory to relativistic stochastic theories on manifolds using the framework of second order geometry. As a byproduct, our results suggest that a consistent path integral based formulation of a quantum theory on a Lorentzian (Riemannian) manifold requires an Ito deformation of the Poincare (Galilean) symmetry, arising due to the coupling of the quadratic variation to the affine connection.