Decay probability distribution of quantum-mechanical unstable systems and time operator

M. Courbage and S.M. Saberi Fathi

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2008, vol. 387, issue 10, 2205-2224

Abstract: We study the decay probability distribution and the survival probability of unstable quantum systems using an explicit formula of the spectral projections of the time operator in the statistical Liouville description for solvable Hamiltonians. We apply this formula to the one-level Friedrichs model to study the decay distribution of the excited decaying state under coupling with a continuum of degrees of freedom. Then we show that this formula eliminates the Zeno effect for short-time decay. We also show that the long-time asymptotic of the survival probability is a sum of an algebraically decaying term and an exponentially decaying one.

Keywords: Quantum decay; Unstable systems; Time operator; Survival probability; Friedrichs model (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437107013088
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:387:y:2008:i:10:p:2205-2224

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2007.12.011

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().