2004/12/17 by Massimiliano Esposito, Esposito, Massimiliano
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall) #Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) #cond-mat.mes-hall #cond-mat.stat-mech
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0412495
PhD thesis presented at the ULB (Free University of Brussels) the 23th of September 2004
arxiv created 2004/12/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
In this thesis, we investigate the emergence of kinetic processes in finite quantum systems. We first generalize the Redfield theory to describe the dynamics of a small quantum system weakly interacting with an environment of finite heat capacity. We then study in detail the spin-GORM model, a model made of a two-level system interacting with a random matrix environment. By doing this, we verify our new theory and find a critical size of the environment over which kinetic processes occur. We finally study the emergence of a diffusive transport process, on a finite tight-binding subsystem interacting with a fast environment, when the size of subsystem exceeds a critical value.