Two-dimensional tunnel bifurcations with dissipation

TL;DR

This paper investigates two-dimensional quantum tunneling with dissipation, identifying bifurcation phenomena and phase transition behaviors, and explains experimental quantum fluctuation data in porphyrins near critical temperature.

Contribution

It introduces a model for dissipative two-particle tunneling, analyzes bifurcation and phase transition phenomena, and correlates findings with experimental data on porphyrins.

Findings

Identification of critical temperature T_c for bifurcation

Observation of cascade bifurcations of tunneling trajectories

Explanation of quantum fluctuations in porphyrins near T_c

Abstract

Two-particle tunneling in synchronous and asynchronous regimes is studied in the framework of dissipative quantum tunneling. We show that the use of the proposed model is justified by a comparison with realistic potential energy surfaces of porphyrin and experimental dependence of the reaction rate on temperature. The critical temperature T_c corresponding to a bifurcation of the underbarrier trajectory is determined. The effect of a heat bath local mode on the probability of two-dimensional tunneling transfer is also investigated. At certain values of the parameters, the degeneracy of antiparallel tunneling trajectories is important. Thus, four, six, twelve, etc., pairs of the trajectories should be taken into account (a cascade of bifurcations). For the parallel particle tunneling the bifurcation resembles phase transition of a first kind, while for the antiparallel transfer it behaves as second order phase transition. The proposed theory allows for the explanation of experimental data on quantum fluctuations in two-proton tunneling in porphyrins near the critical temperature.