Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Semiclassical theory of coherence and decoherence

Journal Article · · Physical Review. A
 [1];  [1]
  1. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA (United States)
A general semiclassical approach to quantum systems with system-bath interactions is developed. We study system decoherence in detail using a coherent-state semiclassical wave-packet method which avoids singularity issues arising in the usual Green's function approach. We discuss the general conditions under which it is approximately correct to discuss quantum decoherence in terms of a ''dephasing'' picture and we derive semiclassical expressions for the phase and phase distribution. Remarkably, an effective system wavefunction emerges whose norm measures the decoherence and is equivalent to a density-matrix formulation.
OSTI ID:
20640017
Journal Information:
Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 68; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

Similar Records

Coherence penalty functional: A simple method for adding decoherence in Ehrenfest dynamics
Journal Article · Wed May 21 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Journal of Chemical Physics · OSTI ID:22304422

Decoherence induced by interacting quantum spin baths
Journal Article · Thu Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2007 · Physical Review. A · OSTI ID:20982279

Variational mixed quantum/semiclassical simulation of dihalogen guest and rare-gas solid host dynamics
Journal Article · Mon Jul 21 00:00:00 EDT 2014 · Journal of Chemical Physics · OSTI ID:22419883