564 research outputs found
Resonance Enhanced Tunneling
Time evolution of tunneling in thermal medium is examined using the real-time
semiclassical formalism previously developed. Effect of anharmonic terms in the
potential well is shown to give a new mechanism of resonance enhanced
tunneling. If the friction from environment is small enough, this mechanism may
give a very large enhancement for the tunneling rate. The case of the
asymmetric wine bottle potential is worked out in detail.Comment: 12 pages, LATEX file with 5 PS figure
New Kinetic Equation for Pair-annihilating Particles: Generalization of the Boltzmann Equation
A convenient form of kinetic equation is derived for pair annihilation of
heavy stable particles relevant to the dark matter problem in cosmology. The
kinetic equation thus derived extends the on-shell Boltzmann equation in a most
straightforward way, including the off-shell effect. A detailed balance
equation for the equilibrium abundance is further analyzed. Perturbative
analysis of this equation supports a previous result for the equilibrium
abundance using the thermal field theory, and gives the temperature power
dependence of equilibrium value at low temperatures. Estimate of the relic
abundance is possible using this new equilibrium abundance in the sudden
freeze-out approximation.Comment: 19 pages, LATEX file with 2 PS figure
Temperature Power Law of Equilibrium Heavy Particle Density
A standard calculation of the energy density of heavy stable particles that
may pair-annihilate into light particles making up thermal medium is performed
to second order of coupling, using the technique of thermal field theory. At
very low temperatures a power law of temperature is derived for the energy
density of the heavy particle. This is in sharp contrast to the exponentially
suppressed contribution estimated from the ideal gas distribution function. The
result supports a previous dynamical calculation based on the Hartree
approximation, and implies that the relic abundance of dark matter particles is
enhanced compared to that based on the Boltzmann equation.Comment: 12 pages, LATEX file with 6 PS figure
Quantum System under Periodic Perturbation: Effect of Environment
In many physical situations the behavior of a quantum system is affected by
interaction with a larger environment. We develop, using the method of
influence functional, how to deduce the density matrix of the quantum system
incorporating the effect of environment. After introducing characterization of
the environment by spectral weight, we first devise schemes to approximate the
spectral weight, and then a perturbation method in field theory models, in
order to approximately describe the environment. All of these approximate
models may be classified as extended Ohmic models of dissipation whose
differences are in the high frequency part.
The quantum system we deal with in the present work is a general class of
harmonic oscillators with arbitrary time dependent frequency. The late time
behavior of the system is well described by an approximation that employs a
localized friction in the dissipative part of the correlation function
appearing in the influence functional. The density matrix of the quantum system
is then determined in terms of a single classical solution obtained with the
time dependent frequency. With this one can compute the entropy, the energy
distribution function, and other physical quantities of the system in a closed
form.
Specific application is made to the case of periodically varying frequency.
This dynamical system has a remarkable property when the environmental
interaction is switched off: Effect of the parametric resonance gives rise to
an exponential growth of the populated number in higher excitation levels, or
particle production in field theory models. The effect of the environment is
investigated for this dynamical system and it is demonstrated that there existsComment: 55 pages, LATEX file plus 13 PS figures. A few calculational
mistatkes and corresponding figure 1 in field theory model corrected and some
changes made for publication in Phys. Rev.D (in press
Quantum Dissipation and Decay in Medium
Quantum dissipation in thermal environment is investigated, using the path
integral approach. The reduced density matrix of the harmonic oscillator system
coupled to thermal bath of oscillators is derived for arbitrary spectrum of
bath oscillators. Time evolution and the end point of two-body decay of
unstable particles is then elucidated: After early transient times unstable
particles undergo the exponential decay, followed by the power law decay and
finally ending in a mixed state of residual particles containing contributions
from both on and off the mass shell, whose abundance does not suffer from the
Boltzmann suppression.Comment: 19 pages, LATEX file. Substantially expanded and revised for
publication, including more complete description of application to unstable
particle decay in thermal medium. Some minor mistake of numerical factors
correcte
Dynamics of barrier penetration in thermal medium: exact result for inverted harmonic oscillator
Time evolution of quantum tunneling is studied when the tunneling system is
immersed in thermal medium. We analyze in detail the behavior of the system
after integrating out the environment. Exact result for the inverted harmonic
oscillator of the tunneling potential is derived and the barrier penetration
factor is explicitly worked out as a function of time. Quantum mechanical
formula without environment is modifed both by the potential renormalization
effect and by a dynamical factor which may appreciably differ from the
previously obtained one in the time range of 1/(curvature at the top of
potential barrier).Comment: 30 pages, LATEX file with 11 PS figure
Prolonged Decay and CP-asymmetry
Time evolution of unstable particles that occur in the expanding universe is
investigated. The off-shell effect not included in the Boltzmann-like equation
is important for the decay process when the temperature becomes much below the
mass of unstable particle. When the off-shell effect is taken into account, the
thermal abundance of unstable particles at low temperatures has a power law
behavior of temperature ,
unlike the Boltzmann suppressed , with the power related to
the spectral rise near the threshold of the decay and with the decay
rate. Moreover, the relaxation time towards the thermal value is not governed
by the exponential law; instead, it is the power law of time. The evolution
equation for the occupation number and the number density of the unstable
particle is derived, when both of these effects, along with the cosmic
expansion, are included. We also critically examine how the scattering off
thermal particles may affect the off-shell effect to the unstable particle. As
an application showing the importance of the off-shell effect we compute the
time evolution of the baryon asymmetry generated by the heavy boson decay.
It is shown that the out-of equilibrium kinematics previously discussed is
considerably changed.Comment: 33 pages, LATEX file with 9 PS figure
Phase separation and suppression of critical dynamics at quantum transitions of itinerant magnets: MnSi and (SrCa)RuO
Quantum phase transitions (QPTs) have been studied extensively in correlated
electron systems. Characterization of magnetism at QPTs has, however, been
limited by the volume-integrated feature of neutron and magnetization
measurements and by pressure uncertainties in NMR studies using powderized
specimens. Overcoming these limitations, we performed muon spin relaxation
(SR) measurements which have a unique sensitivity to volume fractions of
magnetically ordered and paramagnetic regions, and studied QPTs from itinerant
heli/ferro magnet to paramagnet in MnSi (single-crystal; varying pressure) and
(SrCa)RuO (ceramic specimens; varying ). Our results
provide the first clear evidence that both cases are associated with
spontaneous phase separation and suppression of dynamic critical behavior,
revealed a slow but dynamic character of the ``partial order'' diffuse spin
correlations in MnSi above the critical pressure, and, combined with other
known results in heavy-fermion and cuprate systems, suggest a possibility that
a majority of QPTs involve first-order transitions and/or phase separation.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, 21 authors, to appear in Nature Physic
Improved measurement of the K+->pi+nu(nu)over-bar branching ratio
An additional event near the upper kinematic limit for K+-->pi(+)nu(nu) over bar has been observed by experiment E949 at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Combining previously reported and new data, the branching ratio is B(K+-->pi(+)nu(nu) over bar)=(1.47(-0.89)(+1.30))x10(-10) based on three events observed in the pion momentum region 211<P<229 MeV/c. At the measured central value of the branching ratio, the additional event had a signal-to-background ratio of 0.9
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