Hot Accelerated Qubits: Decoherence, Thermalization, Secular Growth and Reliable Late-time Predictions
Dec 30, 201944 pages
Published in:
- JHEP 03 (2020) 008
- Published: Mar 2, 2020
e-Print:
- 1912.12951 [hep-th]
DOI:
- 10.1007/JHEP03(2020)008 (publication)
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Abstract: (Springer)
We compute how an accelerating qubit coupled to a scalar field — i.e. an Unruh-DeWitt detector — evolves in flat space, with an emphasis on its late-time behaviour. When calculable, the qubit evolves towards a thermal state for a field prepared in the Minkowski vacuum, with the approach to this limit controlled by two different time-scales. For a free field we compute both of these as functions of the difference between qubit energy levels, the dimensionless qubit/field coupling constant, the scalar field mass and the qubit’s proper acceleration. Both time-scales differ from the Candelas-Deutsch-Sciama transition rate traditionally computed for Unruh-DeWitt detectors, which we show describes the qubit’s early-time evolution away from the vacuum rather than its late-time approach to equilibrium. For small enough couplings and sufficiently late times the evolution is Markovian and described by a Lindblad equation, which we derive in detail from first principles as a special instance of Open EFT methods designed to handle a breakdown of late-time perturbative predictions due to the presence of secular growth. We show how this growth is resummed in this example to give reliable information about late-time evolution including both qubit/field interactions and field self-interactions. By allowing very explicit treatment, the qubit/field system allows a systematic assessment of the approximations needed when exploring late-time evolution, in a way that lends itself to gravitational applications. It also allows a comparison of these approximations with those — e.g. the ‘rotating-wave’ approximation — widely made in the open-system literature (which is aimed more at atomic transitions and lasers).Note:
- 28 pages plus appendices, 1 figure; v2) now published in JHEP, typos fixed and references added
- Effective Field Theories
- Renormalization Group
- Renormalization Regularization and Renormalons
- field theory: scalar
- qubit
- effective field theory
- coupling constant
- energy levels
- acceleration
- gravitation
References(96)
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