Master Equation for a Particle Coupled to a Two-Level Reservoir

TL;DR

This paper develops a master equation approach for a particle interacting with a two-level system reservoir, comparing it to traditional bosonic bath models and exploring unique spectral density effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel master equation derived from path integrals for two-level reservoirs, expanding beyond standard bosonic bath models.

Findings

Different spectral densities lead to distinct dissipative behaviors.

The model captures unique quantum dissipation features not seen in bosonic baths.

Comparison reveals both similarities and key differences with standard models.

Abstract

We study the quantum dissipative dynamics of a particle coupled linearly to a set of two-level systems (the heat bath) via the master equation method which we extract from the path integral formalism independently from the form of the bath spectral density. We compare our results with the standard models based on bosonic heat baths showing their main differences and similarities. In particular, we study special forms for the spectral density of the bath which give results quite different from the standard models.