US-Ireland Cooperative Research: Quantum Stochastic Processes and Applications

该奖项将支持美国和爱尔兰在理论物理方面的研究。主要研究人员是路易斯安那州立大学的罗伯特·奥康奈尔博士、密歇根大学的G·W·福特博士、都柏林高等研究院的约翰·刘易斯博士和爱尔兰都柏林国家高等教育研究所的D·M·赫弗南博士。这项拟议的工作侧重于量子随机过程，特别强调诸如量子光学和激光、原子和凝聚态物理等领域的系统，这些领域涉及作为量子系统的一个组成部分的热浴的存在。奥康奈尔博士和刘易斯博士自1983年以来一直在这一主题上合作。在本项目中，他们将把从一般振子热浴获得的结果应用于诸如时间衰变的非马尔科夫效应等问题，以及对量子光学改进的热浴模型的研究。这项研究中的两个主要新元素将是1)寻求与自旋玻色子问题有关的新想法，2)用主方程(密度矩阵的冯·诺依曼运动方程)来表述量子耗散。这项工作将使研究人员能够研究量子耗散对呈现混沌现象的系统的影响。赫弗南的参与将是重要的，因为他是半导体激光器中混沌现象的公认专家。

This award will support U.S.-Irish research in theoretical physics. The principal investigators are Dr. Robert O'Connell, Louisiana State University, Dr. G. W. Ford, University of Michigan, Dr. John Lewis, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and Dr. D. M. Heffernan, National Institute for Higher Education, Dublin, Ireland. The proposed work focuses on quantum stochastic processes, with special emphasis on systems in such areas as quantum optics and laser, atomic and condensed matter physics, which involve the presence of a heat bath as an integral element of a quantum system. Drs. O'Connell and Lewis have worked together on this topic since 1983. In the present project, they will apply results obtained for a general oscillator heat bath to such problems as non-Markovian effects on time decay, as well as to an investigation of improved heat bath models for quantum optics. Two major new elements in this study will be 1) the pursuit of new ideas in relation to the spin boson problem and 2) the formulation of quantum dissipations in terms of a master equations (the von Neumann equation of motion for the density matrix). This work will enable the investigators to study the effect of quantum dissipation on systems exhibiting the phenomenon of chaos. The participation of Heffernan, since he is a well-recognized expert in the phenomenon of chaos in semiconductor lasers, will be of importance.