Particle renormalizations in presence of dissipative environments

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a charged particle's quantum interference patterns are affected by a dissipative environment, revealing temperature-dependent dephasing lengths and an effective mass increase at large radii.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of particle renormalization and dephasing in a metal environment using Monte-Carlo simulations and perturbation theory.

Findings

Curvature approaches an R-independent effective mass at large R and low T.

Dephasing lengths scale as T^{-1} for R>l and T^{-1/4} for R<<l.

Effective mass M* exceeds the bare mass M at large R.

Abstract

We study the Aharonov-Bohm oscillations of a charged particle on a ring of radius R coupled to a dirty metal environment. With Monte-Carlo methods we evaluate the curvature of these oscillations which has the form 1/M*R^2, where M* is an effective mass. We find that at low temperatures T the curvature approaches at large R>l an R independent M*>M, where l is the mean free path in the metal. This behavior is also consistent with perturbation theory in the particle - metal coupling parameter. At finite temperature T we identify dephasing lengths that scale as T^{-1} at R>l and as T^{-1/4} at R<<l.