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Physical review. E, Statistical physics, plasmas, fluids, and related interdisciplinary topics

Energy balance for a dissipative system

X. L. Li, G. W. Ford, Robert F. O’Connell

Published Aug 1, 1993• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

In general, dissipative problems involve both frictional and fluctuation forces. As it turns out, solutions of many of these problems are encompassed by the generalized quantum Langevin equation. Here, we use this equation to obtain a general expression for the work done by the fluctuation force on a quantum particle. At equilibrium, this work is necessary to balance the energy lost by the particle due to the frictional force.

DOI
10.1103/physreve.48.1547

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In general, dissipative problems involve both frictional and fluctuation forces. As it turns out, solutions of many of these problems are encompassed by the generalized quantum Langevin equation. Here, we use this equation to obtain a general expression for the work done by the fluctuation force on a quantum particle. At equilibrium, this work is necessary to balance the energy lost by the particle due to the frictional force.
The role of random force in maintaining equilibrium in a dissipative quantum system is studied here. We compute the instantaneous power supplied by the fluctuating (random) force, which provides information about the work done by the random force on the quantum subsystem of interest. The quantum Langevin equation formalism is used here to verify that, at equilibrium, the work done by the fluctuating force balances the energy lost by the quantum subsystem to the heat bath. The quantum subsystem we choose to couple to the heat bath is the charged oscillator in a magnetic field. We perform the calculations using the Drude regularized spectral density of bath oscillators instead of using a strict ohmic spectral density that gives memoryless damping. We also discuss the energy balance for our dissipative quantum system and in this regard it is to be understood that the physical system is the charged magneto-oscillator coupled to the heat bath, not the uncoupled charged magneto-oscillator.
Previous years researchers began to simulate open quantum system, taking into account the interaction between system and the environment. One approach to deal with this problem is to use the density matrix within the Liouville-von-Neumann formalism or the Markovian variant the Lindblad equations. Another way is to use a stochastic approach where a random force is added to the system. The benefit of the stochastic approach is to solve the dynamics of the system with less time and memory than the density matrix approaches. In this project we want to develop a stochastic approach that can deal with the stochastic wave functions approach. We did this on a 2-level system and found that it works well when comparing to a density matrix approach. Next, we tested a quantum particle connect to a bath of harmonic oscillators using the stochastic approach. We found that a friction term is necessary and applied it. Like in the classical Langevin equations the friction constant and the random force fluctuations are related by the fluctuation-dissipation constant. We showed that with friction the dynamics decays to an ensemble with energy of Egs+kBTE_{gs}+k_BTEgs​+kB​T. However, we also found here are problems. The system seems to absorb energy indefinitely if the temperature is higher than the zero point energy or if the system is a Morse oscillator. Thus more research is required to make this method work.
Abstract We propose a Langevin equation to describe the quantum Brownian motion of bounded particles based on a distinctive formulation concerning both the fluctuation and dissipation forces. The fluctuation force is similar to that employed in the classical case. It is a white noise with a variance proportional to the temperature. The dissipation force is not restricted to be proportional to the velocity and is determined in a way as to guarantee that the stationary state is given by a density operator of the Gibbs canonical type. To this end we derived an equation that gives the time evolution of the density operator, which turns out to be a quantum Fokker–Planck–Kramers equation. The approach is applied to the harmonic oscillator in which case the dissipation force is found to be non Hermitian and proportional to the velocity and position.
The macroscopic description of a quantum particle with passive dissipation and moving in an arbitrary external potential is formulated in terms of the generalized Langevin equation. The coupling with the heat bath corresponds to two terms: a mean force characterized by a memory function \ensuremath{\mu}(t) and an operator-valued random force. Explicit expressions are given for the correlation and commutator of the random force. The random force is never Markovian. It is shown that \ensuremath{\mu}\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}(z), the Fourier transform of the memory function, must be a positive real function, analytic in the upper half-plane and with Re[\ensuremath{\mu}\ifmmode \tilde{}\else \~{}\fi{}(\ensuremath{\omega}+i0+{0}^{+}0+)] a positive distribution on the real axis. This form is then derived for the independent-oscillator model of a heat bath. It is shown that the most general quantum Langevin equation can be realized by this simple model. A critical comparison is made with a number of other models that have appeared in the literature.