Related papers: Could Spontaneous Transitions be Spontaneous?
Quantum mechanics is an extremely successful theory that agrees with every experiment. However, the principle of linear superposition, a central tenet of the theory, apparently contradicts a commonplace observation: macroscopic objects are…
The spontaneous decay of an excited atom by photon emission is one of the most common and elementary physical process present in nature and in laboratories. The decay is random in time with constant probability density, as it can be…
Under unitary evolution, systems move gradually from state to state. An unstable atom has amplitude in its original state after many lifetimes ($\tau_L$). But in the laboratory, transitions seem to go instantaneously, as suggested by the…
We give an explicit stochastic Hamiltonian model of discontinuous unitary evolution for quantum spontaneous jumps like in a system of atoms in quantum optics, or in a system of quantum particles that interacts singularly with "bubbles"…
A version of the second order phase transition theory, in which the Nernst theorem holds automatically, is proposed. The theory is constructed in terms of the order parameter and the (configurational) entropy. It faithfully reproduces the…
The outcome of a single quantum experiment is unpredictable, except in a pure-state limit. The definite process that takes place in the apparatus may either be intrinsically random or be explainable from a deeper theory. While the first…
It has been noticed that when the waiting time distribution exhibits a transition from an intermediate time power law decay to a long-time exponential decay in the continuous time random walk model, a transition from anomalous diffusion to…
In this paper, we suppose a possible extension of Gibbs ensemble theory so that it can provide a reasonable description to phase transitions and spontaneous symmetry breaking. The extension is founded on three hypotheses, and can be…
The deterministic and time-reversal symmetric dynamics of isolated quantum systems is at odds with irreversible equilibration observed in generic thermodynamic systems. Standard approaches at a reconciliation employ subjective restrictions…
In a recent publication [PRL {\bf 81}, 1142 (1998)] it was argued that a randomly forced particle which collides inelastically with a boundary can undergo inelastic collapse and come to rest in a finite time. Here we discuss the survival…
This article gives an elementary account of the recently proposed theory of spontaneous quantum gravity. It is argued that a viable quantum theory of gravity should be falsifiable, and hence it should dynamically explain the observed…
The basic notion of percolation in physics assumes the emergence of a giant connected (percolation) cluster in a large disordered system when the density of connections exceeds some critical value. Until recently, the percolation phase…
Two alternative interpretations of the quantum collapse are proposed: a time-ordered and a timeless one. The time-ordered interpretation implies that the speed of light can be defined in an absolute way, while the timeless quantum collapse…
We may infer a transition $|n \rangle \to |m \rangle$ between energy eigenstates of an open quantum system by observing the emission of a photon of Bohr frequency $\omega_{mn} = (E_n-E_m) / \hbar$. In addition to the "collapses" to the…
The time evolution of random variables with L\'evy statistics has the ability to develop jumps, displaying very different behaviors from continuously fluctuating cases. Such patterns appear in an ever broadening range of examples including…
We extend a generic class of systems which have previously been shown to spontaneously develop scaling (power law) distributions of their elementary degrees of freedom. While the previous systems were linear and exploded exponentially for…
The problem of spontaneous pair creation in static external fields is reconsidered. A weak version of the conjecture proposed by G Nenciu (1980) is seated and proved. The method reduces the proof of the general conjecture to the study of…
A semi-classical non-Hamiltonian model of a spontaneous collapse of unstable quantum system is given. The time evolution of the system becomes non-Hamiltonian at random instants of transition of pure states to reduced ones, given by a…
We investigate the nature of quantum jumps occurring between macroscopic metastable states of light in the open driven Jaynes-Cummings model. We find that, in the limit of zero spontaneous emission considered in [H. J. Carmichael, Phys.…
We propose a model of sub-diffusion in which an external force is acting on a particle at all times not only at the moment of jump. The implication of this assumption is the dependence of the random trapping time on the force with the…