When is Quantum Decoherence Dynamics Classical.pdfVIP

When is Quantum Decoherence Dynamics Classical? Jiangbin Gong and Paul Brumer Chemical Physics Theory Group, Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto,Toronto, Canada M5S 3H6 (Dated: February 1, 2008) A direct classical analog of quantum decoherence is introduced. Similarities and differences be- tween decoherence dynamics examined quantum mechanically and classically are exposed via a second-order perturbative treatment and via a strong decoherence theory, showing a strong depen- dence on the nature of the system-environment coupling. For example, for the traditionally assumed linear coupling, the classical and quantum results are shown to be in exact agreement. PACS numbers: 03.65.Yz 2 0 0 Decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence due to system-bath coupling. There has been considerable theoretical 2 and experimental work demonstrating that quantum-classical correspondence (QCC) can be induced by decoherence c [1, 2, 3]. By contrast, little work has been done on examining the correspondence between classical and quantum e descriptions of the time evolution of decoherence itself, i.e. decoherence dynamics. In this Letter we show that (a) one D can introduce a direct classical analog of quantum decoherence, and (b) by examining the dynamics of decoherence 8 classically one gains new insights into both the dynamics of decoherence described quantum mechanically and into the 1 conditions for QCC of the dynamics of decoherence. For example, we show that the extent of QCC depends s