Ground State Energy Fluctuations of a System Coupled to a Bath
Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics
2009-11-07 v2 Statistical Mechanics
Quantum Physics
Abstract
It is often argued that a small non-degenerate quantum system coupled to a bath has a fixed energy in its ground state since a fluctuation in energy would require an energy supply from the bath. We consider a simple model of a harmonic oscillator (the system) coupled to a linear string and determine the mean squared energy fluctuations. We also analyze the two time correlator of the energy and discuss its behavior for a finite string.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0108243,
title = {Ground State Energy Fluctuations of a System Coupled to a Bath},
author = {K. E. Nagaev and M. Buttiker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0108243},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
5 pages, 2 eps figures, minor changes