Interplay between coherent and incoherent decay processes in chaotic systems: The role of quantum interference

Camilo Moreno and Juan-Diego Urbina
Phys. Rev. E 103, 052201 – Published 3 May 2021

Abstract

The population decay due to a small opening in an otherwise closed cavity supporting chaotic classical dynamics displays a quantum correction on top of the classical exponential form, a pure manifestation of quantum coherence that acquires a universal form and can be explained by path interference. Being coherent, such enhancement is prone to decoherence effects due to the coupling of the system to an external environment. We study this interplay between incoherent and coherent quantum corrections to decay by evaluating, within a Caldeira-Leggett scenario, off-diagonal contributions to the decoherence functional coming from pairs of correlated classical paths in the time regime where dissipative effects are neglected and decoherence does not affect the classical dynamics, but quantum interference must be accounted for. We find that the competing effects of interference and decoherence lead to a universal nonmonotonic form for the survival probability depending only on the coupling strength and macroscopic parameters of the cavity.

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  • Received 14 October 2020
  • Revised 24 February 2021
  • Accepted 15 April 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.103.052201

©2021 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

  1. Research Areas
Nonlinear Dynamics

Authors & Affiliations

Camilo Moreno and Juan-Diego Urbina

  • Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Regensburg, D-93040 Regensburg, Germany

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Issue

Vol. 103, Iss. 5 — May 2021

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