No Arabic abstract
Couplings of a system to other degrees of freedom (that is, environmental degrees of freedom) lead to energy dissipation when the number of environmental degrees of freedom is large enough. Here we discuss quantal treatments for such energy dissipation. To this end, we discuss two different time-dependent methods. One is to introduce an effective time-dependent Hamiltonian, which leads to a classical equation of motion as a relationship among expectation values of quantum operators. We apply this method to a heavy-ion fusion reaction and discuss the role of dissipation on the penetrability of the Coulomb barrier. The other method is to start with a Hamiltonian with environmental degrees of freedom and derive an equation which the system degree of freedom obeys. For this, we present a new efficient method to solve coupled-channels equations, which can be easily applied even when the dimension of the coupled-channels equations is huge.
Photosynthesis is the basic process used by plants to convert light energy in reaction centers into chemical energy. The high efficiency of this process is not yet understood today. Using the formalism for the description of open quantum systems by means of a non-Hermitian Hamilton operator, we consider initially the interplay of gain (acceptor) and loss (donor). Near singular points it causes fluctuations of the cross section which appear without any excitation of internal degrees of freedom of the system. This process occurs therefore very quickly and with high efficiency. We then consider the excitation of resonance states of the system by means of these fluctuations. This second step of the whole process takes place much slower than the first one, because it involves the excitation of internal degrees of freedom of the system. The two-step process as a whole is highly efficient and the decay is bi-exponential. We provide, if possible, the results of analytical studies, otherwise characteristic numerical results. The similarities of the obtained results to light harvesting in photosynthetic organisms are discussed.
In this Colloquium, the wavefunction-based Multiconfigurational Time-Dependent Hartree approaches to the dynamics of indistinguishable particles (MCTDH-F for Fermions and MCTDH-B for Bosons) are reviewed. MCTDH-B and MCTDH-F or, together, MCTDH-X are methods for describing correlated quantum systems of identical particles by solving the time-dependent Schrodinger equation from first principles. MCTDH-X is used to accurately model the dynamics of real-world quantum many-body systems in atomic, molecular, and optical physics. The key feature of these approaches is the time-dependence and optimization of the single-particle states employed for the construction of a many-body basis set, which yields nonlinear working equations. We briefly describe the historical developments that have lead to the formulation of the MCTDH-X methods and motivate the necessity for wavefunction-based approaches. We sketch the derivation of the unified MCTDH-F and MCTDH-B equations of motion for complete and also specific restricted configuration spaces. The strengths and limitations of the MCTDH-X approach are assessed via benchmarks against an exactly solvable model and via convergence checks. We highlight some applications to instructive and experimentally-realized quantum many-body systems: the dynamics of atoms in Bose-Einstein condensates in magneto-optical and optical traps and of electrons in atoms and molecules. We discuss the current development and frontiers in the field of MCTDH-X: theories and numerical methods for indistinguishable particles, for mixtures of multiple species of indistinguishable particles, the inclusion of nuclear motion for the nonadiabatic dynamics of atomic and molecular systems, as well as the multilayer and second-quantized-representation approaches, and the orbital-adaptive time-dependent coupled-cluster theory are discussed.
Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory (TDDFT) has recently been extended to describe many-body open quantum systems (OQS) evolving under non-unitary dynamics according to a quantum master equation. In the master equation approach, electronic excitation spectra are broadened and shifted due to relaxation and dephasing of the electronic degrees of freedom by the surrounding environment. In this paper, we develop a formulation of TDDFT linear-response theory (LR-TDDFT) for many-body electronic systems evolving under a master equation, yielding broadened excitation spectra. This is done by mapping an interacting open quantum system onto a non-interacting open Kohn-Sham system yielding the correct non-equilibrium density evolution. A pseudo-eigenvalue equation analogous to the Casida equations of usual LR-TDDFT is derived for the Redfield master equation, yielding complex energies and Lamb shifts. As a simple demonstration, we calculate the spectrum of a C$^{2+}$ atom in an optical resonator interacting with a bath of photons. The performance of an adiabatic exchange-correlation kernel is analyzed and a first-order frequency-dependent correction to the bare Kohn-Sham linewidth based on Gorling-Levy perturbation theory is calculated.
Generalized Gibbs ensembles have been used as powerful tools to describe the steady state of integrable many-particle quantum systems after a sudden change of the Hamiltonian. Here we demonstrate numerically, that they can be used for a much broader class of problems. We consider integrable systems in the presence of weak perturbations which both break integrability and drive the system to a state far from equilibrium. Under these conditions, we show that the steady state and the time-evolution on long time-scales can be accurately described by a (truncated) generalized Gibbs ensemble with time-dependent Lagrange parameters, determined from simple rate equations. We compare the numerically exact time evolutions of density matrices for small systems with a theory based on block-diagonal density matrices (diagonal ensemble) and a time-dependent generalized Gibbs ensemble containing only small number of approximately conserved quantities, using the one-dimensional Heisenberg model with perturbations described by Lindblad operators as an example.
We establish the path integral approach for the time-dependent heat exchange of an externally driven quantum system coupled to a thermal reservoir. We derive the relevant influence functional and present an exact formal expression for the moment generating functional which carries all statistical properties of the heat exchange process for general linear dissipation. The general method is applied to the time-dependent average heat transfer in the dissipative two-state system. We show that the heat can be written as a convolution integral which involves the population and coherence correlation functions of the two-state system and additional correlations due to a polarization of the reservoir. The corresponding expression can be solved in the weak-damping limit both for white noise and for quantum mechanical coloured noise. The implications of pure quantum effects are discussed. Altogether a complete description of the dynamics of the average heat transfer ranging from the classical regime down to zero temperature is achieved.