Fermi's golden rule and exponential decay as a RG fixed point

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that exponential decay and Fermi's golden rule are exact in a specific scaling limit, establishing a renormalization group fixed point using models of effective Hamiltonians and random matrices.

Contribution

It shows that exponential decay and the golden rule are exact fixed points of a renormalization group in a scaling limit, independent of interaction strength.

Findings

Exponential decay and golden rule are exact in the scaling limit.

Ensemble fluctuations vanish, leading to model-independent results.

The method does not rely on perturbation theory or weak interactions.

Abstract

We discuss the decay of unstable states into a quasicontinuum using models of the effective Hamiltonian type. The goal is to show that exponential decay and the golden rule are exact in a suitable scaling limit, and that there is an associated renormalization group (RG) with these properties as a fixed point. The method is inspired by a limit theorem for infinitely divisible distributions in probability theory, where there is a RG with a Cauchy distribution, i.e. a Lorentz line shape, as a fixed point. Our method of solving for the spectrum is well known; it does not involve a perturbation expansion in the interaction, and needs no assumption of a weak interaction. We use random matrices for the interaction, and show that the ensemble fluctuations vanish in the scaling limit. Thus the limit is the same for every model in the ensemble with probability one.