2005/08/31 by Nuno D. Antunes, Fernando C. Lombardo, Diana Monteoliva +1
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Spectroscopy and Quantum Chemical Studies #cond-mat.other #hep-ph #quant-ph #stochastic dynamics and bifurcation
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreve.73.066105
published as Phys.Rev. E73 (2006) 066105 · Version to appear in Phys. Rev. E. 15 pages, 12 figures (low quality due to upload size limitations). Good quality figures in a pdf file can be downloaded from http://www.df.uba.ar/users/lombardo/tunnel
arxiv created 2006/04/26 · openalex publication_date 2006/06/02 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We study the effects of the environment on tunneling in an open system described by a static double-well potential. We describe the evolution of a quantum state localized in one of the minima of the potential at t = 0, in both the limits of high and zero environment temperature. We show that the evolution of the system can be summarized in terms of three main physical phenomena--namely, decoherence, quantum tunneling, and noise-induced activation--and we obtain analytical estimates for the corresponding time scales. These analytical predictions are confirmed by large-scale numerical simulations, providing a detailed picture of the main stages of the evolution and of the relevant dynamical processes.