Wave packet landscape in linear open quantum systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a geometric landscape framework to unify the understanding of wave packet spreading, localization, and collapse in linear open quantum systems, linking their long-time behaviors to symmetry structures.

Contribution

It presents a novel quantum landscape approach that explains diverse long-time wave packet phenomena through underlying symmetry geometry, unifying previously separate dynamical effects.

Findings

Landscape geometry determines wave packet behavior

Trapping potentials and bath fluctuations break symmetries

Different long-time limits lead to abrupt changes in wave width

Abstract

We develop a quantum landscape approach to characterize the long-time behavior of wave packet spreading in linear open quantum systems. Instead of treating diffusion, localization, and collapse of the wave packet as separate dynamical phenomena, we show that they originate from the symmetry structure of an underlying landscape in covariance space. The geometry of this landscape determines these distinct long time behaviors. Trapping potentials and bath fluctuations act as distinct symmetry-breaking perturbations, leading to noncommuting long-time limits and abrupt changes in the asymptotic wave-packet width. This geometric picture provides a unified origin for wave-packet diffusion, localization, and collapse in dissipative quantum dynamics.