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Dissipative Mechanics Using Complex-Valued Hamiltonians

Quantum Physics 2007-05-23 v1 Statistical Mechanics High Energy Physics - Theory Mathematical Physics Dynamical Systems math.MP Symplectic Geometry

Abstract

We show that a large class of dissipative systems can be brought to a canonical form by introducing complex co-ordinates in phase space and a complex-valued hamiltonian. A naive canonical quantization of these systems lead to non-hermitean hamiltonian operators. The excited states are unstable and decay to the ground state . We also compute the tunneling amplitude across a potential barrier.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0701141,
  title  = {Dissipative Mechanics Using Complex-Valued Hamiltonians},
  author = {S. G. Rajeev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0701141},
  year   = {2007}
}