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The Journal of Physical Chemistry B

Time Evolution of Bath Properties in Spin-Boson Dynamics

Sohang Kundu, Nancy Makri

Published Jul 20, 2021• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The dynamical behaviors of a two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic dissipative bath has been studied extensively using a variety of analytical and numerical methods. The focus of the vast majority of these studies has been on the properties of the TLS, averaged with respect to the bath degrees of freedom. In this work, we use real-time path integral methods to probe the behavior of select bath degrees of freedom during the dynamics of a symmetric two-level system (TLS) coupled to a dissipative bath by calculating system-bath densities (SBD) and coordinate expectation values. Overall, the SBD motion on each diabatic state is simpler than the motion of the total density. In the weak coupling regime, which characterizes the parameters of oscillators that comprise such a bath, the SBD on each TLS state remains primarily compact and Gaussian-like, such that its peak is well characterized by the mode expectation value. In the absence of a dissipative environment, nonadiabatic density depletion leads to spikes in coordinate expectation values. The evolution of the SBD peak trajectory for two discrete modes exhibits Lissajous patterns with frequency-dependent shapes that strongly resemble classical trajectory motion on a torus. These patterns become more complex when the coupling of the mode to the TLS is increased outside of this regime, leading to persistent small amplitude oscillations in the TLS populations characterized by a very slow decay and SBD trajectories that exhibit behaviors reminiscent of chaotic classical systems. Indirect coupling to a dissipative bath has a stabilizing effect on the dynamics, eliminating spikes, synchronizing the SBD motion on the two diabatic states and regularizing the SBD trajectory to simple rectangular Lissajous-like shapes with a slowly shrinking boundary, regardless of the mode frequencies.

DOI
10.1021/acs.jpcb.1c03861

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The dynamical behaviors of a two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic dissipative bath has been studied extensively using a variety of analytical and numerical methods. The focus of the vast majority of these studies has been on the properties of the TLS, averaged with respect to the bath degrees of freedom. In this work, we use real-time path integral methods to probe the behavior of select bath degrees of freedom during the dynamics of a symmetric two-level system (TLS) coupled to a dissipative bath by calculating system-bath densities (SBD) and coordinate expectation values. Overall, the SBD motion on each diabatic state is simpler than the motion of the total density. In the weak coupling regime, which characterizes the parameters of oscillators that comprise such a bath, the SBD on each TLS state remains primarily compact and Gaussian-like, such that its peak is well characterized by the mode expectation value. In the absence of a dissipative environment, nonadiabatic density depletion leads to spikes in coordinate expectation values. The evolution of the SBD peak trajectory for two discrete modes exhibits Lissajous patterns with frequency-dependent shapes that strongly resemble classical trajectory motion on a torus. These patterns become more complex when the coupling of the mode to the TLS is increased outside of this regime, leading to persistent small amplitude oscillations in the TLS populations characterized by a very slow decay and SBD trajectories that exhibit behaviors reminiscent of chaotic classical systems. Indirect coupling to a dissipative bath has a stabilizing effect on the dynamics, eliminating spikes, synchronizing the SBD motion on the two diabatic states and regularizing the SBD trajectory to simple rectangular Lissajous-like shapes with a slowly shrinking boundary, regardless of the mode frequencies.
The dynamical behavior of a two-level system coupled linearly to a dissipative bath of two-level systems whose tunneling splittings and coupling parameters are distributed according to an Ohmic spectrum is studied using numerical path integral methods as well as the noninteracting blip approximation for an equivalent harmonic environment characterized by a scaled spectral density. Comparisons with the behaviors of the conventional spin-boson model of similar coupling strength reveal a weaker quenching of coherence in the present case. Finally, the boundary in parameter space between coherent and incoherent dynamics is mapped.
The time evolution of a system of bilinearly coupled bosonic modes is investigated using the real-time path integral technique in the coherent-state representation. In order to get the stationary trajectories, the corresponding Lagrangian function is diagonalized and then the path integrals are evaluated by means of the stationary-phase method. The present treatment is applied to a dissipative harmonic oscillator within the Caldeira–Leggett model. The time evolution of the reduced density matrix in the basis of coherent states is given in simple analytic form for weak system–bath coupling, i.e. the so-called rotating-wave terms can be evaluated exactly but the non-rotating-wave terms only in a perturbative manner. The validity range of the rotating-wave approximation is discussed from the viewpoint of spectral equations. In contrast to many perturbative approaches, the bath degrees of freedom are treated explicitly. In addition, it is shown that systems without initial system–bath correlations can exhibit initial jumps in the population dynamics even for rather weak dissipation. Only with initial correlations can the classical trajectories for the system coordinate be recovered.
In this PhD thesis we have been concerned with dissipative and decoherence processes which take place specifically for quantum systems in a dissipative bistable potential. This potential describes a Hamiltonian system whose spectrum is composed by a ladder of levels, grouped as doublets under the potential barrier and being almost equally spaced above it. The system interacts with a thermal environment, fully characterized by the so-called bath spectral density. The dynamical quantity we looked at is the so-called reduced density matrix (RDM), obtained by tracing out the full density matrix the environmental degrees of freedom. The matrix elements for the RDM are exactly evaluated by means of the Feynman-Vernon real-time path-integral technique. Depending on which regime of parameters we are interested in, i.e. temperature and coupling strength with the reservoir, a few or several energy levels contribute to the dynamics. In particular, a two-level system (TLS) is first analyzed, corresponding to the regime where only the lowest doublet is energetically accessible. We discussed in the beginning the case of a TLS interacting with Ohmic and super-Ohmic baths and then the situation in which a symmetric TLS is assumed to be coupled with an external detector, like a dc-SQUID, the latter being coupled to an Ohmic environment. This model provides a better description of a real qubit, as frequently discussed in various experiments. In the former case, we developed a theory called Weakly-Interacting Blip Approximation (WIBA), which is nonperturbative in the coupling strength as well as in the tunneling frequency and gives reliable results over a wide range of temperatures and coupling strength to the thermal environment. In the latter case, the dynamics was evaluated upon starting from the Non-Interacting Blip Approximation (NIBA) and approximating the NIBA kernels up to first order in the detector-bath coupling strength. Analytical results, valid also at finite detuning, were obtained and we showed that our theory correctly reproduces the onset of multiple oscillation frequencies in the dynamics due to the entanglement between TLS and detector. Finally, we discussed the more general case of an M-level system coupled with an Ohmic environment. This situation describes the case of a bistable potential where the temperature is high enough that higher-lying energy levels are being populated and the system cannot be reduced to a simple TLS. Many are the experimental situations which can be described by our theory. We developed a novel approximation called Weakly-Interacting VR-Blip Approximation (VR-WIBA) for the dynamics in a driven dissipative bistable potential. In the regimes of low to moderate temperatures and coupling strengths, we exploited a separation of time scales between tunneling and vibrational relaxation events and we could derive analytical kernels for the intra- and inter-well dynamics.
Abstract. We propose an approximation scheme to describe the dynamics of the spin-boson model when the spectral density of the environment shows a peak at a characteristic frequency Ω which can be very close (or even equal) to the spin Zeeman frequency ∆. Mapping the problem onto a two-state system (TSS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator (HO) with frequency ω0 we show that the representation of displaced HO states provides an appropriate basis to truncate the Hilbert space of the TSS-HO system and therefore a better picture of the system dynamics. We derive an effective Hamiltonian for the TSS-HO system, and show it furnishes a very good approximation for the system dynamics even when its two subsystems are moderately coupled. Finally, assuming the regime of weak HO-bath coupling and low temperatures, we are able to analytically evaluate the dissipative TSS dynamics.
In this thesis the path integral formalism is applied to the calculation of the dynamics of dissipative quantum systems. The time evolution of a system of bilinearly coupled bosonic modes is treated using the real-time path integral technique in coherent-state representation. This method is applied to a damped harmonic oscillator within the Caldeira-Leggett model. In order to get the stationary trajectories the corresponding Lagrangian function is diagonalized and then the path integrals are evaluated by means of the stationary-phase method. The time evolution of the reduced density matrix in the basis of coherent states is given in simple analytic form for weak system-bath coupling, i.e. the so-called rotating-wave terms can be evaluated exactly but the non-rotating-wave terms only in a perturbative manner. The validity range of the rotating-wave approximation is discussed from the viewpoint of spectral equations. In addition, it is shown that systems without initial system-bath correlations can exhibit initial jumps in the population dynamics even for rather weak dissipation. Only with initial correlations the classical trajectories for the system coordinate can be recovered. The path integral formalism in a combined phase-space and coherent-state representation is applied to the problem of curve-crossing dynamics. The system of interest is described by two coupled one-dimensional harmonic potential energy surfaces interacting with a heat bath. The mapping approach is used to rewrite the Lagrangian function of the electronic part of the system. Using the Feynman-Vernon influence-functional method the bath is eliminated whereas the non-Gaussian part of the path integral is treated using the perturbation theory in the small coordinate shift between potential energy surfaces. The vibrational and the population dynamics is considered in a lowest order of the perturbation. The dynamics of a Gaussian wave packet is analyzed along a one-dimensional reaction coordinate. Also the damping rate of coherence in the electronic part of the relevant system is evaluated within the ordinary and variational perturbation theory. The analytic expressions for the rate functions are obtained in the low and high temperature regimes.
We study the dissipative dynamics of a biased two-level system (TLS) coupled to a harmonic oscillator (HO), the latter interacting with an Ohmic environment. Using the Van Vleck perturbation theory and going to second order in the coupling between the TLS and the HO, we show how the Hamiltonian of the TLS–HO system can be diagonalized analytically. Our model represents an improvement on the usually used Jaynes–Cummings Hamiltonian as an initial rotating wave approximation is avoided. By assuming a weak coupling to the thermal bath, analytical expressions for the time evolution of the populations of the TLS are found: the population is characterized by a multiplicity of damped oscillations together with a complex relaxation dynamics towards thermal equilibrium. The long time evolution is characterized by a single relaxation rate, which is largest at resonance and whose expression can be given in a closed analytic form.