Dissipative two-identical-particle systems: diffraction and interference

TL;DR

This paper investigates how dissipation and environmental factors influence interference and diffraction patterns of two identical quantum particles, comparing two theoretical approaches and analyzing effects like localization, bunching, and anti-bunching.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of dissipative effects on two-particle quantum interference using Caldirola-Kan and Caldeira-Leggett models, highlighting new insights into particle localization and quantum statistics.

Findings

Friction causes localization and reduces mean square separation in CK approach.

Temperature increases mean square separation in CL approach.

Fermions can exhibit greater joint detection probability than bosons temporarily.

Abstract

Interference and diffraction of two-identical-particles are considered in the context of open quantum systems. This theoretical study is carried out within two approaches, the effective time-dependent Hamiltonian due to Caldirola-Kanai (CK) and the Caldeira-Leggett (CL) one where a master equation for the reduced density matrix is used under the presence of dissipation and temperature of the environment. Two simple but very illustrative examples are considered, diffraction by a single and two Gaussian slits by analyzing the mean square separation between particles, single-particle probability density and the simultaneous detection probability or diffraction patterns. Concerning the single Gaussian slit case, in the CK approach, the mean square separation drastically reduces with friction, reaching a constant value due to the localization effect of friction. On the contrary, in the CL approach, temperature has an opposite effect to friction and this quantity increases. Furthermore, there is a time-interval for which the joint detection probability is greater for fermions than for bosons. As has already been reported for non-dissipative systems, fermion bunching and boson anti-bunching are also observed.