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2013 EPL 103 60007
(http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075/103/6/60007)
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IP Address: 14.139.213.178
This content was downloaded on 31/03/2016 at 14:27
September 2013
EPL, 103 (2013) 60007
doi: 10.1209/0295-5075/103/60007
www.epljournal.org
Institut f
ur Physik, Universit
at Augsburg - D-86135 Augsburg, Germany, EU
II. Institut f
ur Theoretische Physik, Universit
at Stuttgart - D-70550 Stuttgart, Germany, EU
received 14 August 2013; accepted in nal form 20 September 2013
published online 15 October 2013
PACS
PACS
PACS
Abstract For a free particle, the coupling to its environment can be the relevant mechanism to
induce quantum behavior as the temperature is lowered. We study general linear environments
with a spectral density proportional to s at low frequencies and consider in particular the specic
heat of the free damped particle. For super-ohmic baths with s 2, a reentrant classical behavior
is found. As the temperature is lowered, the specic heat decreases from the classical value of
kB /2, thereby indicating the appearence of quantum eects. However, the classical value of the
specic heat is restored as the temperature approaches zero. This surprising behavior is due to
the suppressed density of bath degrees of freedom at low frequencies. For s < 2, the specic heat
at zero temperature increases linearly with s from kB /2 to kB /2. An ohmic bath, s = 1, is thus
very special in the sense that it represents the only case where the specic heat vanishes at zero
temperature.
c EPLA, 2013
Copyright
Introduction. Physical systems are expected to develop quantum eects as temperature is lowered. This
expectation can be motivated by considering the dimenh, where T is the temperature and
sionless quantity kB T /
is a characteristic system frequency. Decreasing the
temperature is thus equivalent to an eective increase of
Plancks constant h
and consequently to more pronounced
quantum eects. A very particular case in this respect is
the free particle where the system does not possess a frequency which in our argument could play the role of .
Conning a free particle of mass M to a nite region
of size L supplies it with a frequency scale h
/2M L2 . In
the following, we assume that L is suciently large so
that nite-size eects are irrelevant at the temperatures
of interest. However, nite-size eects become important
as the strict zero-temperature limit is taken.
Another frequency scale, the one of interest here, arises
if we account for the fact that a physical system is never
completely decoupled from its environment. The coupling
to the environment gives rise to damping of the free particle and provides the damping strength as a frequency
scale. Interestingly, the dimensionless quantity kB T /h
implies that the environmental coupling drives the particle into the quantum regime, quite in contrast to the usual
(a) E-mail:
gert.ingold@physik.uni-augsburg.de
expectation that the environment should suppress quantum eects. The latter would be the case, e.g., for the harmonic oscillator where the oscillator frequency provides a
temperature scale. Our reasoning might make the free particle appear as very particular. However, there exist applications where the low-temperature scale is dominated by
the dissipation, as is the case, e.g., for the Casimir eect
in the presence of Drude-type metal boundaries [1].
In order to quantify the properties of the damped free
particle, we will focus on the specic heat. As other thermodynamic quantities, the specic heat of a system in
the presence of a nite coupling to the environment is not
uniquely dened except in the classical limit of very high
temperatures [2]. Here, we will dene the specic heat on
the basis of the reduced partition function
Z = ZS+B /ZB ,
(1)
(2)
60007-p1
R(z)
=
1
z + (z)
(6)
c2ps+1
.
(c2 + 2 )p
(8)
s1
s
z
s
,p + 1
B
c
2
2
2
z
s
2 F1 p, ; p + 1; 1
.
2
c
(9)
(z) =
(1 z 2 )p sin( s
2 )
3
mn n ( n ).
(4)
J() =
p1
2 n=1
1 (1)n1 B( 2s , p + 1 2s ) 2n+1
z
+
. (12)
n=0 n + 1 2s B(n + 1, p n)
The total mass Mbath of the bath oscillators reads
This form allows to easily read o the behavior of (z) for
2
J()
mn =
d 3 .
(5) small and large arguments which will be needed below to
Mbath
The low-temperature properties of the free damped particle, which is the main focus of this paper, are determined
by the low-frequency characteristics of (z). The leading
terms in the hypergeometric series in eq. (12) yield
2p + 2 s M 3
M
z s1 +
z+
z + O(z 5 )
sin( 2s )
M
4s
M
(13)
5
1 M
M
(z) =
p=2
0
5
with
M
2 p B( 2s , p + 1 2s )
=
.
(14)
M
s2
The rst term in eq. (13) is responsible for frequencydependent damping. The second term adds to the kinetic
term z in R(z).
Its prefactor can therefore be interpreted
as an eective change M of the particles mass M due
to the coupling to the environment. This mass renormalization will be discussed in more detail below. Finally, the
third term only becomes relevant for low temperatures in
the regime 0 < s < 2 at the particular point M/M = 1.
In the limit s 2, both the rst term and the second
term in eq. (13) become singular. The singularities cancel
each other, however, and a logarithmic term accrues,
10
0
2
s
(16)
T
n
can also be seen from g. 1. Indeed, (18) describes the
,
T > E0 ,
(20)
Z=
4 Eg n=1 n + (n )
analytical continuation of (14) to the regime 0 < s < 2. It
60007-p3
(a)
C/kB
in which n = 2T n are the bosonic Matsubara frequencies. The subsequent thermodynamic analysis is based on
the expression (20).
The specic heat follows from the reduced partition
function by
ln(Z)
C=
T2
.
(21)
T
T
(b)
0.5
/c = 3
0.25
s=3
s=2
0
0.5
0.25
(n ) n (n )]2
1 [
n2 (n )
C= +
. (22)
2 n=1
[n + (n )]2
n + (n )
0
0.25
/c = 0.3
s=1
s = 0.5
s = 0.1
/c = 3
s=1
s = 0.5
s = 0.1
1
d ()
1 . (23) densities of the+form (8) with a cuto characterized by p =
C= +
2
2T sinh(/2T )
2. The label 0 on the temperature axis indicates that the
0
The rst term in the square brackets is the specic heat of
a harmonic oscillator with eigenfrequency . The change
of the oscillator density can be given in terms of (6) as
() =
ln[R(i
)]
1
Im
,
(24)
60007-p4
B( 2s ,p 2s )
p=1
p= 2
3
s
p=3
B( 2s , p 2s )
for z 1.
(26)
The 1/z dependence in (26) implies that for all exponents s in the range (11), the leading quantum correction
at high temperatures goes like the square of the inverse
temperature
C=
1 B( 2s , p 2s )
.
2
12
T2
(27)
(2 s) sin( 2s )2 M + M
.
(28)
C=
60007-p5
s 1 (2 + 2p s) sin( 2s )2
+
(6 s)(5 s)T 4s .
2
(30)
narrow, when the width of the box is chosen correspondingly large. In the range 0 < s < 2 mass renormalization
usually plays an ancillary role. However, in the present
model, in which an intrinsic frequency scale is absent,
mass renormalization dictates whether the specic heat
at low temperatures decreases or increases with tempera1
1
.
(31) ture. The threshold to anomalous behavior is associated
C= +
2 2 ln(T )
with a vanishing renormalized mass. Even though several
Finally, in the regime s > 2, the second term in the aspects of the low-temperature behavior reappear for a
expression (13) is the leading one, yielding for the density damped harmonic oscillator of very small frequency [19],
change () = b(s, p) s3 with
the possibility that the specic heat can be negative remains a peculiarity of the free damped particle even for
M
.
(32) non-ohmic damping.
b(s, p) = (s 2)
M + M
In contrast to the coecient (28) which was proportional
to 1/, the coecient b(s, p) is proportional to the damping strength . Nevertheless, since the latter coecient
describes the quantum corrections to the classical value
of the specic heat, the physical picture is unchanged:
Stronger damping renders the free particle more quantum
mechanical.
The leading contributions to the specic heat for s > 2
are now obtained as
C=
1
b(s, p)(s)(s 1)T s2 .
2
(33)
The leading thermal contribution in this regime of exponents s is always negative. Again, accordance with the
Third Law in the limit T 0 is achieved only when the
discreteness of the energy spectrum is taken into account.
Conclusions. In this letter, we presented a study
of thermodynamic properties of a damped free quantum
particle conned to a box for a general spectral density (8)
of the system-bath coupling. It was found that the specic
heat exhibits surprising features.
In the super-ohmic regime s > 2, the specic heat takes
the classical value both at high and at very low temperatures, whereas quantum eects entail reduction in between. Therefore, reentrant classicality can be observed at
low temperatures. This phenomenon arises because of the
suppressed bath density at low frequencies and the ensuing
inability of the bath to drive the free-particle quantum at
low temperatures. The appearance of reentrant classicality is therefore expected to only depend on these general
properties and not on the precise details of the model (3).
Reentrant classicality can be shown to occur also for a
particle conned by a harmonic potential if the oscillator
frequency is much smaller than the damping strength and
the cuto frequency [19]. Then, E0 is determined by the
oscillator ground-state energy. With an appopriate choice
of system parameters, reentrant classicality should thus be
amenable to experimental observation.
For s = 1, i.e. with the exception of the ohmic case, the
Third Law is seemingly violated, if we disregard the nite
width of the box. The temperature regime, in which the
specic heat eventually goes to zero, becomes arbitrarily
nggi and
The authors would like to thank Peter Ha
Peter Talkner for stimulating discussions. One of us
(UW) has received nancial support from the Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft through SFB/TRR 21.
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