English

Phase space formulation of density operator for non-Hermitian Hamiltonians and its application in quantum theory of decay

Quantum Physics 2019-10-09 v1 Statistical Mechanics Mathematical Physics math.MP

Abstract

The Wigner-Weyl transform and phase space formulation of a density matrix approach are applied to a non-Hermitian model which is quadratic in positions and momenta. We show that in the presence of a quantum environment or reservoir, mean lifetime and decay constants of quantum systems do not necessarily take arbitrary values, but could become functions of energy eigenvalues and have a discrete spectrum. It is demonstrated also that a constraint upon mean lifetime and energy appears, which is used to derive the resonance conditions at which long-lived states occur. The latter indicate that quantum dissipative effects do not always lead to decay but, under certain conditions, can support stability of a system.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1910.02298,
  title  = {Phase space formulation of density operator for non-Hermitian Hamiltonians and its application in quantum theory of decay},
  author = {Ludmila Praxmeyer and Konstantin G. Zloshchastiev},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.02298},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

8 pages, 3 composite figures, final/published version