Quantum Dissipation and Decay in Medium
Abstract
Quantum dissipation in thermal environment is investigated, using the path integral approach. The reduced density matrix of the harmonic oscillator system coupled to thermal bath of oscillators is derived for arbitrary spectrum of bath oscillators. Time evolution and the end point of two-body decay of unstable particles is then elucidated: After early transient times unstable particles undergo the exponential decay, followed by the power law decay and finally ending in a mixed state of residual particles containing contributions from both on and off the mass shell, whose abundance does not suffer from the Boltzmann suppression.
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-th/9609223,
title = {Quantum Dissipation and Decay in Medium},
author = {I. Joichi and Sh. Matsumoto and M. Yoshimura},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/9609223},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
19 pages, LATEX file. Substantially expanded and revised for publication, including more complete description of application to unstable particle decay in thermal medium. Some minor mistake of numerical factors corrected