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Robert O'Connell博士、密歇根大学的g.w. Ford博士、都柏林高等研究所的John Lewis博士和爱尔兰都柏林国立高等教育研究所的d.m. Heffernan博士。提出的工作重点是量子随机过程，特别强调在量子光学和激光、原子和凝聚态物理等领域的系统，这些领域涉及热浴作为量子系统的一个组成部分的存在。Drs。自1983年以来，奥康奈尔和刘易斯一直在共同研究这一课题。在目前的项目中，他们将把从一般振荡器热浴中获得的结果应用于诸如时间衰减的非马尔可夫效应等问题，以及研究改进的量子光学热浴模型。本研究的两个主要新元素将是：1)追求与自旋玻色子问题相关的新思想；2)根据主方程（密度矩阵的冯·诺伊曼运动方程）表述量子耗散。这项工作将使研究者能够研究量子耗散对表现混沌现象的系统的影响。由于Heffernan是半导体激光器中混沌现象的公认专家，他的参与将是重要的。

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.