Blocking of inter-subspace tunneling by intra subspace inelastic scattering

TL;DR

This paper investigates how intra-site inelastic scattering suppresses inter-subspace tunneling, leading to incoherent particle motion, with implications for understanding decoherence in quantum systems and high-temperature superconductivity.

Contribution

It demonstrates that on-site spin flip scattering caused by environmental bosonic excitations inhibits tunneling coherence and analyzes the effects at high and zero temperatures.

Findings

Incoherent tunneling rate calculated at high temperature

On-site spin flips induce incoherence in tunneling

Renormalization of tunneling at zero temperature discussed

Abstract

In recent years the notion of intrinsic decoherence and dephasing of a particle interacting with its environment is being investigated intensively. This has an important bearing on a plausible causal connection between incoherent c-axis resistivity and high-temperature superconductivity. In our work we study the tunnel supression and incoherent motion of a particle tunneling between two sites. The bosonic excitations of the environment are coupled to only one site inducing on-site spin flips. We show that this on-site spin flip scattering makes the tunnel motion incoherent. In the high-temperature limit incoherent rate or hopping rate has been calculated. We also briefly discuss the renormalization of the effective tunneling by environmental coupling at zero temperature following Wegner's renormalization group procedure.