RELAXATION PHENOMENA IN CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM SYSTEMS

Relaxation phenomena in three different classical and quantum systems are investigated. First, the role of multiplicative and additive noise in a classical metastable system is analyzed. The mean lifetime of the metastable state shows a nonmonotonicbehavior with a maximum as a function of both the additive and multiplicative noise intensities. In the second system, the simultaneous action of thermal and non-Gaussian noise on the dynamics of an overdamped point Josephson junction is studied. The effect of a Lévy noise generated by a Cauchy–Lorentz distribution on the mean lifetime of the superconductive metastable state, in the presence of a periodic driving, is investigated. We find resonant activation and noise enhanced stability in the presence of Lévy noise. Finally, the time evolution of a quantum particle moving in a metastable potential and interacting with a thermal reservoir is analyzed. Within the Caldeira-Legget model and the Feynman–Vernon functional approach, we obtain the time evolution of the population distributions in the position eigenstates of the particle, for different values of the thermal bath coupling strength.