Temperature crossover of decoherence rates in chaotic and regular bath dynamics

The effect of chaotic bath dynamics on the decoherence of a quantum system is examined for the vibrational degrees of freedom of a diatomic molecule in a realistic, constant temperature collisional bath. As an example, the specific case of I$_2$ in liquid xenon is examined as a function of temperature, and the results compared with an integrable xenon bath. A crossover in behavior is found: the integrable bath induces more decoherence at low bath temperatures than does the chaotic bath, whereas the opposite is the case at the higher bath temperatures. These results, verifying a conjecture due to Wilkie, shed light on the differing views of the effect of chaotic dynamics on system decoherence.

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