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The Journal of Chemical Physics

Quantum relaxation dynamics using Bohmian trajectories

Jeremy B. Maddox, Eric R. Bittner

Published Oct 8, 2001• 51 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a new Bohmian trajectory based treatment of quantum dynamics suitable for dissipative systems. Writing the density matrix in complex-polar form, we derive and define quantum equations of motion for Liouville-space trajectories for a generalized system coupled to a dissipative environment. Our theory includes a vector potential which mixes forward and backwards propagating components and pulls coherence amplitude away from the diagonal region of the density matrix. Quantum effects enter via a double quantum potential, Q(x,y), which is a measure of the local curvature of the density amplitude. We discuss how decoherence can be thought of as a balancing between localization brought on by contact with a thermal environment which increases the local curvature of the density matrix and delocalization due to the internal pressure of the quantum force which seeks to minimize the local curvature. The quantum trajectories are then used to propagate an adaptive Lagrangian grid which carries the density matrix, ρ(x,y), and the action, A(x,y), thereby providing a complete hydrodynamiclike description of the dynamics.

DOI
10.1063/1.1394747

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We present a new Bohmian trajectory based treatment of quantum dynamics suitable for dissipative systems. Writing the density matrix in complex-polar form, we derive and define quantum equations of motion for Liouville-space trajectories for a generalized system coupled to a dissipative environment. Our theory includes a vector potential which mixes forward and backwards propagating components and pulls coherence amplitude away from the diagonal region of the density matrix. Quantum effects enter via a double quantum potential, Q(x,y), which is a measure of the local curvature of the density amplitude. We discuss how decoherence can be thought of as a balancing between localization brought on by contact with a thermal environment which increases the local curvature of the density matrix and delocalization due to the internal pressure of the quantum force which seeks to minimize the local curvature. The quantum trajectories are then used to propagate an adaptive Lagrangian grid which carries the density matrix, ρ(x,y), and the action, A(x,y), thereby providing a complete hydrodynamiclike description of the dynamics.
In this paper we present a new quantum-trajectory based treatment of quantum dynamics suitable for dissipative systems. Starting from a de Broglie/Bohm-like representation of the quantum density matrix, we derive and define quantum equations-of-motion for Liouville-space trajectories for a generalized system coupled to a dissipative environment. Our theory includes a vector potential which mixes forward and backwards propagating components and non-local quantum potential which continuously produces coherences in the system. These trajectories are then used to propagate an adaptive Lagrangian grid which carries the density matrix, ρ(x,y)ρ(x,y)ρ(x,y), and the action, A(x,y)A(x,y)A(x,y), thereby providing a complete hydrodynamic-like description of the dynamics.
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 wavefunction of a quantum system at any time from the trajectories of a discrete ensemble of hydrodynamic fluid elements (Bohm particles) which evolve according to non-classical equations of motion. Until very recently these schemes have been limited to closed 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 which 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.
Abstract In this article, we develop a series of hierarchical mode‐coupling equations for the momentum cumulants and moments of the density matrix for a mixed quantum system. Working in the Lagrange representation, we show how these can be used to compute quantum trajectories for dissipative and nondissipative systems. This approach is complementary to the de Broglie–Bohm approach in that the moments evolve along hydrodynamic/Lagrangian paths. In the limit of no dissipation, the paths are the Bohmian paths. However, the “quantum force” in our case is represented in terms of momentum fluctuations and an osmotic pressure. Representative calculations for the relaxation of a harmonic system are presented to illustrate the rapid convergence of the cumulant expansion in the presence of a dissipative environment. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2002
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.
A hybrid method is proposed to propagate system-bath quantum dynamics that use both basis functions and coupled quantum trajectories. In it, the bath is represented with an ensemble of Bohmian trajectories while the system degrees of freedom are accounted through reduced density matrices. By retaining the Hilbert space structure for the system, the method is able to capture interference processes that are challenging to describe in Bohmian dynamics due to singularities that these processes introduce in the quantum potential. By adopting quantum trajectories to represent the bath, the method beats the exponential scaling of the computational cost with the bath size. This combination makes the method suitable for large-scale ground and excited state fully quantum molecular dynamics simulations. Equations of motion for the quantum trajectories and reduced density matrices are derived from the Schrödinger equation and a computational algorithm to solve these equations is proposed. Through computations in two-dimensional model systems, the method is shown to offer an accurate description of subsystem observables and of quantum decoherence, which is difficult to obtain when the quantum nature of the bath is ignored. The scaling of the method is demonstrated using a model with 21 degrees of freedom. The limit of independent trajectories is recovered when the mass of bath degrees of freedom is much larger than the one of the system, in agreement with mixed quantum-classical descriptions.
A hybrid method is proposed to propagate system-bath quantum dynamics that use both basis functions and coupled quantum trajectories. In it, the bath is represented with an ensemble of Bohmian trajectories while the system degrees of freedom are accounted through reduced density matrices. By retaining the Hilbert space structure for the system, the method is able to capture interference processes that are challenging to describe in Bohmian dynamics due to singularities that these processes introduce in the quantum potential. By adopting quantum trajectories to represent the bath, the method beats the exponential scaling of the computational cost with the bath size. This combination makes the method suitable for large-scale ground and excited state fully quantum molecular dynamics simulations. Equations of motion for the quantum trajectories and reduced density matrices are derived from the Schrodinger equation and a computational algorithm to solve these equations is proposed. Through computations in two-dimensional model systems, the method is shown to offer an accurate description of subsystem observables and of quantum decoherence, which is difficult to obtain when the quantum nature of the bath is ignored. The scaling of the method is demonstrated using a model with 21 degrees of freedom. The limit of independent trajectories is recovered when the mass of bath degrees of freedom is much larger than the one of the system, in agreement with mixed quantum-classical descriptions.