The quantum mechanical Langevin equation for a damped harmonic oscillator with operator-valued-noise, da t /dt=(-i omega - gamma )A t + lambda w(t), is reinvestigated. By assuming the canonical commutation relation at initial time, (A 0 , A 0 *)=1, and a Hermitian operator for the Gaussian quantum noise w(t), it is shown that Streater's procedure to satisfy (A t ,A t *)=1 for all later time yields an improved result: the noise operator w(t) can be determined universally and normalised such that, by choosing lambda 2 =2 gamma ( beta h(cross) omega ) -1 , the (symmetrised) power spectrum of w(t) is equal to the physically significant form 1 / 2 beta h(cross) omega coth( 1 / 2 beta h(cross) omega ), where beta is the inverse temperature of the heat bath, thus ensuring the beta -KMS correlation functions for any pair of operators.
Time evolution of a harmonic oscillator linearly coupled to a heat bath is compared for three classes of initial states for the bath modes-grand canonical ensemble, number states, and coherent states. It is shown that for a wide class of number states the behavior of the oscillator is similar to the case of the equilibrium bath. If the bath modes are initially in coherent states, then the variances of the oscillator coordinate and momentum, as well as its entanglement to the bath, asymptotically approach the same values as for the oscillator at zero temperature and the average coordinate and momentum show a Brownian-like behavior. We derive an exact master equation for the characteristic function of the oscillator valid for arbitrary factorized initial conditions. In the case of the equilibrium bath this equation reduces to an equation of the Hu-Paz-Zhang type, while for the coherent states bath it leads to an exact stochastic master equation with a multiplicative noise.
The heat-bath frequency distribution, necessary to maintain the canonical commutation relations for all time for a quantum mechanical oscillator with non-Markovian features like memory-dependent damping, is shown to satisfy certain constraint relations. An algorithm is given to explicitly find the heat-bath frequency distribution in terms of a series expansion for all processes where the timescale for the non-Markovian memory kernel is much smaller than the inverse of the strength of damping term. In the non-Markovian case, the heat-bath distribution function exhibits dependence on the system characteristics. The KS periodicity conditions on the system Green functions as the system approaches equilibrium are established for the present case.
Quantum diffusion equations featuring explicitly time-dependent transport coefficients are derived from generalized non-Markovian Langevin equations. Generalized fluctuation-dissipation relations and analytic expressions for calculating the friction and diffusion coefficients in nuclear processes are obtained. The asymptotic behavior of the transport coefficients and correlation functions for a damped harmonic oscillator that is linearly coupled in momentum to a heat bath is studied. The coupling to a heat bath in momentum is responsible for the appearance of the diffusion coefficient in coordinate. The problem of regression of correlations in quantum dissipative systems is analyzed.
Building upon the work of Hu, Paz, and Zhang [1,2] on open quantum systems we consider the quantum Brownian motion (QBM) model with one oscillator (position variable
x) as the system, {\it nonlinearly} coupled to an environment of
N harmonic oscillators (with mass
mn, natural frequency
ωn, position
qn and momentum
pn variables) in the form
∑n(vn1(x)qnk+vn2(x)pnl) where
k,l are integers (the present work only considers the
k=l=2 cases). The vertex functions $v_{n1}, v_{n2} $ are of the form
vn1=λCn1f(x),vn2(x)=−λCn2mn−2ωn−2f(x) where
Cn1,2 are the coupling constants with the
nth oscillator,
f(x) is any arbitrary function of
x, and
λ is a dimensionless constant. Employing the closed-time-path formalism the influence action
SIF is calculated using a perturbative expansion in
λ. It is possible to identify the terms in
SIF quadratic or higher in
Δ(s)≡f(x+(s))−f(x−(s)) to constitute the noise kernel, while terms linear in
Δ to that of the dissipation kernel. The non-Gaussian noise kernel gives rise to non-zero three-point correlation function of the corresponding stochastic force. The pathway presented here should be useful for the exploration of \textit{non-Gaussian properties of systems nonlinearly coupled with their environments}; examples in early universe cosmology and in quantum optomechanics (QOM) are mentioned. A modified fluctuation-dissipation relation (FDR) is also established, which ensures the consistency of the model and the accuracy of results even at higher perturbative orders. Another result of significance is the derivation of a nonlinear Langevin equation which is expected to be useful for many open quantum system applications.
A unified framework of stochastic differential equations for quantum systems, formulated within Non-Equilibrium Thermo Field Dynamics (NETFD), is applied to a model of non-linear damped oscillator. The quantum stochastic Liouville equation and the quantum Langevin equations (both of Ito and Stratonovich type), which are consistent with the corresponding master equation, are written down explicitly in the case of a non-conventional treatment. This solves Kubo's third problem: how one can obtain the correlations of random force operators for the Langevin equation compatible with the master equation derived by the non-conventional treatment of the damping theory.