Localization of a particle due to dissipation in 1 and 2 dimensional lattices

• Main Author: Hasselfield, Matthew
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/18616

We study two aspects of the problem of a particle moving on a lattice while subject to dissipation, often called the "Schmid model." First, a correspondence between the Schmid model and boundary sine-Gordon field theory is explored, and a new method is applied to the calculation of the partition function for the theory. Second, a traditional condensed matter formulation of the problem in one spatial dimension is extended to the case of an arbitrary two-dimensional Bravais lattice. A well-known mathematical analogy between one-dimensional dissipative quantum mechanics and string theory provides an equivalence between the Schmid model at the critical point and boundary sine-Gordon theory, which describes a free bosonic field subject to periodic interaction on the boundaries. Using the tools of conformal field theory, the partition function is calculated as a function of the temperature and the renormalized coupling constants of the boundary interaction. The method pursues an established technique of introducing an auxiliary free boson, fermionizing the system, and constructing the boundary state in fermion variables. However, a different way of obtaining the fermionic boundary conditions from the bosonic theory leads to an alternative renormalization for the coupling constants that occurs at a more natural level than in the established approach. Recent renormalization group analyses of the extension of the Schmid model to a two-dimensional periodic potential have yielded interesting new structure in the phase diagram for the mobility. We extend a classic one-dimensional, finite temperature calculation to the case of an arbitrary two-dimensional Bravais lattice. The duality between weak-potential and tightbinding lattice limits is reproduced in the two-dimensional case, and a perturbation expansion in the potential strength used to verify the change in the critical dependence of the mobility on the strength of the dissipation. With a triangular lattice the possibility of third order contributions arises, and we obtain some preliminary expressions for their contributions to the mobility. === Science, Faculty of === Physics and Astronomy, Department of === Graduate