English

Phonon-induced relaxation of a two-state system in solids

Statistical Mechanics 2008-05-05 v1 Materials Science

Abstract

We study phonon-induced relaxation of quantum states of a particle (e.g., electron or proton) in a rigid double-well potential in a solid. Relaxation rate due to Raman two-phonon processes have been computed. We show that in a two-state limit, symmetry arguments allow one to express these rates in terms of independently measurable parameters. In general, the two-phonon processes dominate relaxation at higher temperature. Due to parity effect in a biased two-state system, their rate can be controlled by the bias.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0605667,
  title  = {Phonon-induced relaxation of a two-state system in solids},
  author = {Jaroslav Albert and E. M. Chudnovsky and D. A. Garanin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0605667},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

5 PR pages, 1 figure