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Published May 11, 1988 | public
Journal Article

Mean relaxation time description of quasi-dissipative behavior in finite-state quantum systems

Abstract

An approximately single-exponential decay of an initially prepared non-stationary state can occur in quantum systems even if there are only a finite number of states. The time scale τ of the decay is then much shorter than the recurrence time T of the system. We describe here a method for calculating the probability amplitude of the non-stationary state, observed on a time scale γ^(−1), by a mean relaxation time approximation. In many cases the resulting decay constant Γ(γ) is almost independent of γ for τ⪡γ^(−1)⪡T, and the value found for it in this regime constitutes the actually observed decay constant.

Additional Information

© 1988 Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. Received 20 November 1987. It is a pleasure to thank S.M. Lederman for discussions and for providing us with his results on the heavy mass barrier problem. The latter were particularly helpful in testing the present method. We are pleased to acknowledge the support of this work by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023