The Journal of Chemical Physics
Dynamics with the effective adiabatic theory: The Bloch equations
Benny Carmeli, David Chandler
Abstract
This paper extends our earlier work on the effective adiabatic theory [J. Chem. Phys. 82, 3400 (1985)] to study relaxation of a two-level system coupled to a Gaussian dissipative bath—the spin–boson problem. Bloch equations are derived which, under the limited circumstances described herein, treat the role of bath fluctuations omitted in the equilibrium effective adiabatic reference system. Applications to the Lorentzian dissipative bath show that the theory agrees closely with numerical simulation results. Application to an Ohmic bath shows that the theory is in agreement with currently accepted results concerned with the problem of macroscopic quantum coherence.