English

Diagonalization of system plus environment Hamiltonians

Statistical Mechanics 2009-10-30 v1

Abstract

A new approach to dissipative quantum systems modelled by a system plus environment Hamiltonian is presented. Using a continuous sequence of infinitesimal unitary transformations the small quantum system is decoupled from its thermodynamically large environment. Dissipation enters through the observation that system observables generically decay completely into a different structure when the Hamiltonian is transformed into diagonal form. The method is particularly suited for studying low-temperature properties. This is demonstrated explicitly for the super-Ohmic spin-boson model.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/9701123,
  title  = {Diagonalization of system plus environment Hamiltonians},
  author = {Stefan Kehrein and Andreas Mielke},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/9701123},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

4 pages, Latex, uses Revtex

R2 v1 2026-07-22T11:56:09.313Z