We consider the well known model of spin 1/2 coupled to a slowly varying magnetic field in the presence of a weak damping represented by a Lindblad-form operator. We show that Berry's geometrical phase remains unaltered by dissipation. A clear and physically appealing interpretation of this dynamics is given in terms of Bloch's vector. Dissipation effects are twofold: a shrinking in the modulus of this vector, which (geometrically) characterizes coherence loss and a time dependent (dissipation related) precession angle. Experimentally accessible effects are calculated.
We consider the well known model of spin 1/2 coupled to a slowly varying magnetic field in the presence of a weak damping represented by a Lindblad-form operator. We show that Berry's geometrical phase remains unaltered by dissipation. A clear and physically appealing interpretation of this dynamics is given in terms of Bloch's vector. Dissipation effects are twofold: a shrinking in the modulus of this vector, which (geometrically) characterizes coherence loss and a time dependent (dissipation related) precession angle. Experimentally accessible effects are calculated.
We consider the spin 12 model coupled to a slowly varying magnetic field in the presence of a weak damping represented by a Lindblad-form operators. We show that Berry's geometrical phase remains unaltered by the two dissipation mechanism considered. Dissipation effects are twofold: a shrinking in the modulus of the Bloch's vector, which characterizes coherence loss and a time-dependent (dissipation related) precession angle. We show that the line broadening of the Fourier transformation of the components of magnetization is only due to the presence of dissipation.
We investigate the geometric phase or Berry phase acquired by a spin half which is both subject to a slowly varying magnetic field and weakly coupled to a dissipative environment (either quantum or classical). We study how this phase is modified by the environment and find that the modification is of a geometric nature. While the original Berry phase (for an isolated system) is the flux of a monopole field through the loop traversed by the magnetic field, the environment-induced modification of the phase is the flux of a quadrupolelike field. We find that the environment-induced phase is complex, and its imaginary part is a geometric contribution to dephasing. Its sign depends on the direction of the loop. Unlike the Berry phase, this geometric dephasing is gauge invariant for open paths of the magnetic field.
Berry phase was originally defined for systems whose states are separated by finite energy gaps. One might naively expect that a system without a gap cannot have a Berry phase. Despite this we ask whether a Berry phase can be observed in a system which has a continuous spectrum because its coupling to the environment has broadened its energy levels. We find that, contrary to the above naive expectation, there are conditions under which the Berry phase is observable. However it is modified by the presence of the environment and no longer has a simple geometric interpretation. The model system we consider is a spin-half in a slowly rotating magnetic field, with the spin also coupled to a Ohmic environment of harmonic oscillators (spin-boson model). Here we discuss the high-temperature limit of this model. We then interpret our results in terms of a spin under the influence of a classical stochastic field.
We calculate Berry’s phase when the driving field, to which a spin-[Formula: see text] is coupled adiabatically, rather than the familiar classical magnetic field, is a quantum vector operator, of noncommuting, in general, components, e.g. the angular momentum of another particle, or another spin. The geometric phase of the entire system, spin plus “quantum driving field”, is first computed, and is then subdivided into the two subsystems, using the Schmidt decomposition of the total wave function — the resulting expression shows a marked, purely quantum effect, involving the commutator of the field components. We also compute the corresponding mean “classical” phase, involving a precessing magnetic field in the presence of noise, up to terms quadratic in the noise amplitude — the results are shown to be in excellent agreement with numerical simulations in the literature. Subtleties in the relation between the quantum and classical case are pointed out, while three concrete examples illustrate the scope and internal consistency of our treatment.
In 1984 Berry addressed a quantum system undergoing a unitary and cyclic evolution under the action of a time-dependent Hamiltonian (M. V. Berry, 1984). The process was supposed to be adiabatic, meaning that the time scale of the system’s evolution was much shorter than the time scale of the changing Hamiltonian. Until Berry’s study, it was assumed that for a cyclic Hamiltonian the quantum state would acquire only so-called dynamical phases, deprived of physical meaning. Such phases could be eliminated by redefining the quantum state through a “gauge” transformation of the form |ψ〉 → eiα |ψ〉. However, Berry discovered that besides the dynamical, there was an additional phase that could not be “gauged away” and whose origin was geometric or topological. It depended on the path that |ψ〉 describes in the parameter space spanned by those parameters to which the Hamiltonian owed its time dependence. Berry’s discovery was the starting point for a great amount of investigations that brought to light topological aspects of both quantum and classical systems. Berry’s phase was soon recognized as a special case of more general phases that showed up when dealing with topological aspects of different systems. For example, the Aharonov-Bohm phase could be understood as a geometric phase. The rotation angle acquired by a parallel-transported vector after completing a closed loop in a gravitationally curved space-time region, is also a geometric, Berry-like phase. Another example is the precession of the plane of oscillation of a Foucault pendulum. Berry’s original formulation was directly applicable to the case of a spin-1/2 system evolving under the action of a slowly varying magnetic field that undergoes cyclic changes. A spin-1/2 system is a special case of a two-level system. Another instances are two-level atoms and polarized light, so that also in these cases we should expect to find geometric phases. In fact, the first experimental test of Berry’s phase was done using polarized, classical light (A. Tomita, 1986). Pancharatnam (S. Pancharatnam, 1956) anticipated Berry’s phase when he proposed, back in 1956, how to decide whether two polarization states are “in phase”. Pancharatnam’s prescription is an operational one, based upon observing whether the intensity of the interferogram formed by two polarized beams has maximal intensity. In that case, the two polarized beams are said to be “in phase”. Such a definition is analogous to the definition of distant parallelism in differential geometry. Polarized states can be subjected to different transformations which could be cyclic or not, adiabatic or not, unitary or not. The Pancharatnam-Berry Phase: Theoretical and Experimental Aspects
We study the dynamics of a quantum system with a time-dependent Hamiltonian which is given by a linear combination of SU(1,1) generators and coupled with a heat bath. An effective Hamiltonian of this dissipative system is derived. With the help of a time-dependent gauge transformation, we obtain the exact solutions of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation, from which the time-evolution operator and the non-adiabatic and adiabatic Berry phases, which depend on time, are calculated explicitly. In the weak dissipation limit, an additional term besides the original Berry phase is found. The additional phase does not have a geometrical meaning due to the dissipation.