Related papers: Fission Decay Rates Determined from a Quantal Tran…
Variational perturbation theory is used to determine the decay rates of metastable states across a cubic barrier of arbitrary height. For high barriers, a variational resummation procedure is applied to the complex energy eigenvalues…
The thermal decay of linear chains from a metastable state is investigated. A crossover from rigid to elastic decay occurs when the number of particles, the single particle energy barrier or the coupling strength between the particles is…
We obtain an analytical expression for the heat current between two overdamped quantum oscillators interacting with local thermal baths at different temperatures. The total heat current is split into classical and quantum contributions. We…
Open quantum systems with nearly degenerate energy levels have been shown to exhibit long-lived metastable states in the approach to equilibrium, even when modelled with certain Lindblad-form quantum master equations. This is a result of…
Two improvements with respect to previous formulations are presented for the calculation of the partition function $\mathcal{Z}$ of small, isolated and interacting many body systems. By including anharmonicities and employing a variational…
The decomposition kinetics of a solid-solution into separate phases are analyzed with an equation of motion initially developed to account for dissipative processes in quantum systems. This equation and the steepest-entropy-ascent quantum…
We consider the general scenario of an excited level |i> of a quantum system that can decay via two channels: (i) via a single-quantum jump to an intermediate, resonant level |bar m>, followed by a second single-quantum jump to a final…
The effects of dissipation on the thermodynamic properties of nonlinear quantum systems are approached by the path-integral method in order to construct approximate classical-like formulas for evaluating thermal averages of thermodynamic…
We apply the Gaussian trajectories approach to the study of the critical behavior of two-dimensional dissipative arrays of nonlinear photonic cavities, in presence of two-photon driving and in regimes of sizable loss rates. In spite of the…
We study the real-time dynamics of quantum models with long-range interactions coupled to a heat-bath within the closed-time path-integral formalism. We show that quantum fluctuations depress the transition temperature. In the subcritical…
We present a study of the decay of metastable states of a scalar field via thermal activation, in the presence of a finite density of fermions. The process we consider is the nucleation of ``{\it droplets}'' of true vacuum inside the false…
We use a canonical quantization procedure to set up a quantum Fokker-Planck-Kramers equation that accounts for quantum dissipation in a thermal environment. The dissipation term is chosen to ensure that the thermodynamic equilibrium is…
We undertake a thorough analysis of the thermodynamics of the trajectories followed by a quantum harmonic oscillator coupled to $N$ dissipative baths by using a new approach to large-deviation theory inspired by phase-space quantum optics.…
We consider decay of metastable states of forced vibrations of a quantum oscillator close to bifurcation points, where dissipation becomes effectively strong. We show that decay occurs via quantum activation over an effective barrier. The…
Fission transients describe the fission rate as it evolves towards the quasistationary value given by Kramers' formula. The nature of fission transients is dependent on the assumed initial distribution of the compound nuclei along the…
The finite size theory of metastability in a quartic potential is developed by the semiclassical path integral method. In the quantum regime, the relation between temperature and classical particle energy is found in terms of the first…
The time evolution of the thermally activated decay rates is considered. This evolution is of particular importance for the recent nanoscale experiments discussed in the literature, where the potential barrier is relatively low (or the…
The problem of a massive elastic string depinning from a linear defect under the action of a small driving force is considered. To exponential accuracy the decay rate is calculated with the help of the instanton method; then, fluctuations…
The dissipative dynamics of a quantum bistable system coupled to a Ohmic heat bath is investigated beyond the spin-boson approximation. Within the path-integral approach to quantum dissipation, we propose an approximation scheme which…
Using Langer's $Im F$ method, we discuss the temperature dependence of nuclear fission width in the presence of dissipative environments. We introduce a low cut-off frequency to the spectral density of the environmental oscillators in order…