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Physical Review

A Note on the Quantization of Dissipative Systems

Wesley E. Brittin

Published Feb 1, 1950• 100 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The work of E. Kanai shows that the quantization of dissipative systems by use of a Hamiltonian formalism involving the time explicitly leads to results in disagreement with experience. We discuss the quantization of dissipative systems in a manner such that the time does not enter explicitly. It is shown that in the Heisenberg representation the only kind of dissipative forces consistent with the formalism are those which are functions of the coordinates alone. There exists no Schr\"odinger representation unless the forces are non-dissipative.

DOI
10.1103/physrev.77.396

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The work of E. Kanai shows that the quantization of dissipative systems by use of a Hamiltonian formalism involving the time explicitly leads to results in disagreement with experience. We discuss the quantization of dissipative systems in a manner such that the time does not enter explicitly. It is shown that in the Heisenberg representation the only kind of dissipative forces consistent with the formalism are those which are functions of the coordinates alone. There exists no Schr"odinger representation unless the forces are non-dissipative.
Caldirola [Nuovo Cimento 18, 393 (1941)] and Kanai's [Prog. Theor. Phys. 3, 440 (1948)] time-dependent approach for dissipative systems can be traced back to the conventional system-plus-reservoir approach; however, it apparently violates the uncertainty principle. This discrepancy can be avoided by considering a consistent transition between the Caldirola-Kanai formalism and a logarithmic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation that requires not only a transformation of the operators, but also a nonunitary transformation of the wave function. This procedure also shows the equivalence of three at first sight incompatible approaches to describe dissipative quantum systems.
The usual treatment of damping forces in quantum mechanics starts from the introduction of the explicitly time dependent Kanai Hamiltonian, which actually represents a variable mass particle, and the misinterpretation of this Hamiltonian as representing a particle of constant mass leads to certain physical difficulties. However the Hamiltonian can be modified so that it can be reinterpreted as describing a constant mass particle. Here we explicitly introduce the mass as a new dynamical variable, which allows us to write a linear, time independent Hamiltonian for the system, which can be solved by conventional methods. The damped harmonic oscillator and damped free particle are treated in detail, both for the Kanai Hamiltonian and for our case, and the solutions are compared. Our solution can be reduced to the Kanai one in appropriate circumstances, but in general it has a much greater versatility, as a result of which it can be more easily reinterpreted as describing a constant mass particle subject to a damping force, which reinterpretation is of course necessary if the method is to have practical applicability. We also show how such a reinterpretation can be carried out in detail by introducing a ’’dissipation variable’’, in terms of which one may avoid the concept of a variable mass altogether.
Quantization processes generally assume the Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics. The notion of dissipation does not fit easily into the Hamiltonian structure. There appeared in the literature a quantization process that circumvents the use of the Hamiltonian approach and derives the Schr\"odinger equation from first principles. Thus, the usual approach of assuming a dissipative force of the type fd=k(t)v{f}_{d}=k(t)vfd​=k(t)v, where k(t)k(t)k(t) is a scalar depending only on the time and vvv is the velocity, can be approached using this quantization process to mathematically derive a Schr\"odinger equation. The derivation for this simple case was already performed by the authors elsewhere. The full generalization of a dissipative force in the context of a linear response theory, as is usual in classical mechanics, would be to write this force as fi(x,t)=Kij(x,t)vj{f}_{i}(\mathbf{x},t)={\mathcal{K}}_{ij}(\mathbf{x},t){v}_{j}fi​(x,t)=Kij​(x,t)vj​, where K(x,t)\mathcal{K}(\mathbf{x},t)K(x,t) is a tensor giving the nonhomogeneity and nonisotropy of the process. In this paper, we present this generalization and connect our results with nonlinear Schr\"odinger-like equations already known from the literature.