Interplay between coherent and incoherent decay processes in chaotic systems: the role of quantum interference

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum interference and environmental decoherence jointly influence decay processes in chaotic systems, revealing a universal non-monotonous survival probability shape depending on system parameters.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of the interplay between quantum coherence and decoherence in decay, highlighting a universal behavior in chaotic cavities.

Findings

Quantum interference causes a universal enhancement in decay correction.

Decoherence suppresses quantum interference effects.

The survival probability exhibits a non-monotonous universal form.

Abstract

The population decay due to a small opening in an otherwise closed cavity supporting chaotic classical dynamics displays a quantum correction on top of the classical exponential form, a pure manifestation of quantum coherence that acquires a universal form and can be explained by path interference. Being coherent, such enhancement is prone to decoherence effects due to the coupling of the system to an external environment. We study this interplay between incoherent and coherent quantum corrections to decay by evaluating, within a Caldeira-Legget scenario, off-diagonal contributions to the decoherence functional coming from pairs of correlated classical paths in the time regime where dissipative effects are neglected and decoherence does not affect the classical dynamics, but quantum interference must be accounted for. We find that the competing effects of interference and decoherence lead to a universal non-monotonous form for the survival probability depending only on the universality class, coupling strength, and macroscopic parameters of the cavity.