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Physical Review A

Dressed-particle description of the damped harmonic oscillator

W. Eckhardt

Published Jun 1, 1987• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Ullersma's model consistently describes the quantum-mechanical damped harmonic oscillator. Proper limiting processes in the initially reversible solutions lead to irreversible behavior. It is shown that the irreversible solutions can directly be derived from a field version of the discrete Ullersma Hamiltonian H (H\ensuremath{\rightarrow}${H}_{F}$). In the ground state of the system the phonon occupation number of the oscillator does not vanish. Therefore, these ``bare'' phonons cannot be interpreted as ``physical'' quanta or particles. By suitable canonical transformations, the bare-field description is transformed into a physical description (${H}_{F}$\ensuremath{\rightarrow}${H}_{\mathrm{ph}}$), which allows the definition of physical particles and which is characterized by a renormalized frequency, a screened interaction between oscillator and bath, and a symmetry of position and momentum operators. The physical description is closely related to the rotating-wave approximation of the original model. The relaxation behavior and the equilibrium properties of the different descriptions are discussed and compared.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.35.5191

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Ullersma's model consistently describes the quantum-mechanical damped harmonic oscillator. Proper limiting processes in the initially reversible solutions lead to irreversible behavior. It is shown that the irreversible solutions can directly be derived from a field version of the discrete Ullersma Hamiltonian H (H\ensuremath{\rightarrow}HF{H}_{F}HF​). In the ground state of the system the phonon occupation number of the oscillator does not vanish. Therefore, these bare'' phonons cannot be interpreted as physical'' quanta or particles. By suitable canonical transformations, the bare-field description is transformed into a physical description (HF{H}_{F}HF​\ensuremath{\rightarrow}Hph{H}_{\mathrm{ph}}Hph​), which allows the definition of physical particles and which is characterized by a renormalized frequency, a screened interaction between oscillator and bath, and a symmetry of position and momentum operators. The physical description is closely related to the rotating-wave approximation of the original model. The relaxation behavior and the equilibrium properties of the different descriptions are discussed and compared.
The damped harmonic oscillator is a workhorse for the study of dissipation in quantum mechanics. However, despite its simplicity, this system has given rise to some approximations whose validity and relation to more refined descriptions deserve a thorough investigation. In this work, we apply a method that allows us to diagonalize exactly the dissipative Hamiltonians that are frequently adopted in the literature. Using this method, we derive the conditions of validity of the rotating-wave approximation (RWA) and show how this approximate description relates to more general ones. We also show that the existence of dissipative coherent states is intimately related to the RWA. Finally, through the evaluation of the dynamics of the damped oscillator, we notice an important property of the dissipative model that has not been properly accounted for in previous works, namely the necessity of new constraints to the application of the factorizable initial conditions.
We consider a particle in the approximation of a harmonic oscillator, coupled linearly to a field modeling an environment. The field is described by an infinite set of harmonic oscillators, and the system (particle--field) is considered in a cavity at thermal equilibrium. We employ the notions of bare and dressed coordinates to study the time evolution of the occupation number. With dressed coordinates no renormalization procedure is required, leading directly to a finite result. In particular, for a large time, the occupation number of the particle becomes independent of its initial value. So we have a Markovian process, describing the particle thermalization with the environment.
The quantum theory of a damped harmonic oscillator is developed by considering an exactly solvable model, previously discussed by Unruh and Zurek [Phys. Rev. D 40, 1071 (1989)]. A one-dimensional harmonic oscillator is coupled to a scalar field. The field is assumed to be initially in thermal equilibrium. The Heisenberg equations of motion are solved without approximation, and the first and second moments, 〈q(t)〉, 〈p(t)〉, 〈q2{\mathit{q}}^{2}q2(t)〉, 〈p2{\mathit{p}}^{2}p2(t)〉, and 〈q(t)p(t)+p(t)q(t)〉 of the coordinate and momentum of the oscillator are calculated. The high-temperature, zero-temperature, free-particle, and weak-damping limits are discussed. A Wigner function of Gaussian form is constructed. The density-matrix equation derived by Louisell $[---Quantum Statistical Properties of Radiation (Wiley, New York, 1973)] is examined and shown to have a solution in agreement with our weak-damping limit.
Systems of interacting harmonic oscillators have recently received considerable attention as models for describing a variety of physical problems. We have investigated the validity of the rotating-wave approximation which constitutes the traditional approach to the solution of the dynamical problem by comparing it with the exact solution. A numerical comparison has been made and the limits of validity of the rotating-wave approximation has been established in terms of the strength of oscillator interaction.In particular, the time development of dynamical operators and certain transition probabilities have been compared. In the region where the rotating-wave approximation is valid, the time evolution of the quasiprobability distribution $P(\ensuremath{\alpha}, t)$ of one oscillator is given for several initial conditions. A counting scheme similar to the argument given by Feynman for the driven harmonic oscillator, is proposed for the interpretation of the time-dependent transition amplitudes between number states.
The interaction between matter and fields is a classical problem. Still there are difficulties. Time symmetry is broken. So the radiation damping belongs to a class of phenomena, which includes transport properties. We propose a radically different approach based on the extension of the dynamics of integrable systems. We consider a simple model, a harmonic oscillator interacting with a field. For integrable systems, it is well known that there exists a unitary transformation U. However, in the radiation damping we have resonances between the action of the particle and the actions of the field. This makes the system an example of Poincar\'e nonintegrable systems. We extend the unitary operator to a new star-unitary operator $\ensuremath{\Lambda}.$ This changes the dynamical description of radiation damping. Once we know the Hamiltonian, we can of course write the Hamilton equations. But we have the possibility to go to new descriptions. The invertible $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ transformation gives many new aspects, which are hidden in the initial description. For example, we show that there are fluctuations, and that there exists an irreducible probability description. The transformation to $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ representation corresponds to a transformation to Markovian probability equations. We can always come back to the initial representation by the inverse transformation. We have verified this remarkable prediction by detailed numerical calculations. We need the $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ transformation to obtain the definition of a dressed unstable mode, which has a well-defined lifetime. In the initial representation there are various time scales and there is no strictly exponential lifetime. The situation is the same as the one we have studied in the quantum case in recent papers.
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.