Stochastic simulation of the quantum linear Boltzmann equation

Bassano Vacchini, Klaus Hornberger

Marc Busse, Piotr Pietrulewicz, Heinz‐Peter Breuer +1 more

We develop a Monte Carlo wave function algorithm for the quantum linear Boltzmann equation, a Markovian master equation describing the quantum motion of a test particle interacting with the particles of an environmental background gas. The algorithm leads to a numerically efficient stochastic simulation procedure for the most general form of this integrodifferential equation, which involves a five-dimensional integral over microscopically defined scattering amplitudes that account for the gas interactions in a nonperturbative fashion. The simulation technique is used to assess various limiting forms of the quantum linear Boltzmann equation, such as the limits of pure collisional decoherence and quantum Brownian motion, the Born approximation, and the classical limit. Moreover, we extend the method to allow for the simulation of the dissipative and decohering dynamics of superpositions of spatially localized wave packets, which enables the study of many physically relevant quantum phenomena, occurring e.g., in the interferometry of massive particles.

Heinz‐Peter Breuer, Bassano Vacchini

Recently the general form of a translation-covariant quantum Boltzmann equation has been derived, which describes the dynamics of a tracer particle in a quantum gas. We develop a stochastic wave function algorithm that enables full three-dimensional Monte Carlo simulations of this equation. The simulation method is used to study the approach to equilibrium for various scattering cross sections and to determine dynamical deviations from Gaussian statistics through an investigation of higher-order cumulants. Moreover, we examine the loss of coherence of superpositions of momentum eigenstates and determine the corresponding decoherence time scales to quantify the transition from quantum to classical behavior of the state of the test particle.

Naman Garg Harish Parthasarathy, D K Upadhyay

László Erdős, Manfred Salmhofer B, Horng‐Tzer Yau

Daniel M. Packwood, Helmut G. Katzgraber, Winfried Teizer

We introduce the stochastic Boltzmann equation (SBE) as an approach for exploring the spin dynamics of magnetic molecules coupled to a stochastic environment. The SBE is a time-evolution equation for the probability density of the spin density matrix of the system. This probability density is relevant to experiments which take measurements on single molecules, in which probabilities of observing particular spin states (rather than ensemble averages) are of interest. By analogy with standard treatments of the regular Boltzmann equation, we propose a relaxation-time approximation for the SBE and show that solutions to the SBE under the relaxation-time approximation can be obtained by performing simple trajectory simulations for the case of a boson gas environment. Cases where the relaxation-time approximation are satisfied can therefore be investigated by careful choice of the parameters for the boson gas environment, even if the actual environment is quite different from a boson gas. The application of the SBE approach is demonstrated through an illustrative example.