Open quantum system

In physics, an open quantum system is a quantum system which is found to be in interaction with an external quantum system, the environment. The open quantum system can be viewed as a distinguished part of a larger closed quantum system, the other part being the environment. Open by a proposed connection to classical physics through a Poised Realm transitional state, to which the quantum entity goes and from which it returns to become purely quantum again. This involving decoherence and "recoherence" in action,^[1] having both indeterminate and non-random behaviors (quantum and classical).^[2]

Open quantum systems are an important concept in quantum optics, quantum measurement theory, quantum statistical mechanics, quantum information science, quantum cosmology and semiclassical approximations.

Open quantum systems are important in any case in which particles in threshold or scattering states (the unbound states) have an effect on the particles in the bound states (i.e. those in the "closed quantum system"). Clustering in nuclei, when the nucleus in question decays via emission of an alpha particle, is such a situation: the coupling to the cluster decay channel induces clustering in the bound nuclei.

See also

• Lindblad equation

References

• Accardi, Luigi; Lu, Yun Gang; Volovich, I.V. (2002). Quantum Theory and Its Stochastic Limit. New York: Springer Verlag. ISBN 978-3-5404-1928-0. 
• Alicki, Robert; Lendi, Karl (1987). Quantum Dynamical Semigroups and Applications. Berlin: Springer Verlag. ISBN 978-0-3871-8276-6. 
• Attal, Stéphane; Joye, Alain; Pillet, Claude-Alain (2006). Open Quantum Systems II: The Markovian Approach. Springer. ISBN 978-3-5403-0992-5. 
• Breuer, Heinz-Peter; F. Petruccione (2007). The Theory of Open Quantum Systems. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-921390-9. 
• Davies, Edward Brian (1976). Quantum Theory of Open Systems. London: Academic Press. ISBN 978-0-12-206150-9. 
• Ingarden, Roman S.; Kossakowski, A.; Ohya, M. (1997). Information Dynamics and Open Systems: Classical and Quantum Approach. New York: Springer Verlag. ISBN 978-0-7923-4473-5. 
• Kauffman, Stuart. "Minds And Machines: The Limits of Turing-Complete Machines". NPR.org. 
• Lindblad, G. (1983). Non-Equilibrium Entropy and Irreversibility. Dordrecht: Delta Reidel. ISBN 1-4020-0320-X. 
• Okolowicz, J.; Płoszajczak, M.; Nazarewicz, W. (2012). "On the Origin of Nuclear Clustering". Progress of Theoretical Physics Supplement 196: 230. arXiv:1202.6290. Bibcode:2012PThPS.196..230O. doi:10.1143/PTPS.196.230. 
• Tarasov, Vasily E. (2008). Quantum Mechanics of Non-Hamiltonian and Dissipative Systems. Amsterdam, Boston, London, New York: Elsevier Science. ISBN 978-0-0805-5971-1. 
• Weiss, Ulrich (2012). Quantum Dissipative Systems (4th ed.). World Scientific. ISBN 978-9-8143-7491-0. 
• Wiseman, Howard M.; Milburn, Gerard J. (2010). Quantum Measurement and Control. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521804424.