Correlations and scaling in one-dimensional heat conduction

We examine numerically the full spatio-temporal correlation functions for all hydrodynamic quantities for the random collision model introduced recently. The autocorrelation function of the heat current, through the Kubo formula, gives a thermal conductivity exponent of 1/3 in agreement with the analytical prediction and previous numerical work. Remarkably, this result depends crucially on the choice of boundary conditions: for periodic boundary conditions (as opposed to open boundary conditions with heat baths) the exponent is approximately 1/2. This is expected to be a generic feature of systems with singular transport coefficients. All primitive hydrodynamic quantities scale with the dynamic critical exponent predicted analytically.Comment: 7 pages, 11 figure

Decoherence from a Chaotic Environment: An Upside Down "Oscillator" as a Model

Chaotic evolutions exhibit exponential sensitivity to initial conditions. This suggests that even very small perturbations resulting from weak coupling of a quantum chaotic environment to the position of a system whose state is a non-local superposition will lead to rapid decoherence. However, it is also known that quantum counterparts of classically chaotic systems lose exponential sensitivity to initial conditions, so this expectation of enhanced decoherence is by no means obvious. We analyze decoherence due to a "toy" quantum environment that is analytically solvable, yet displays the crucial phenomenon of exponential sensitivity to perturbations. We show that such an environment, with a single degree of freedom, can be far more effective at destroying quantum coherence than a heat bath with infinitely many degrees of freedom. This also means that the standard "quantum Brownian motion" model for a decohering environment may not be as universally applicable as it once was conjectured to be.Comment: RevTeX, 29 pages, 5 EPS figures. Substantially rewritten analysis, improved figures, additional references, and errors fixed. Final version (to appear in PRA