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Localization of Coherent Wave Packets in Plasmas due to Decoherence
Author(s) -
Gocke C.,
Röpke G.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
contributions to plasma physics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.531
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1521-3986
pISSN - 0863-1042
DOI - 10.1002/ctpp.200710039
Subject(s) - quantum decoherence , dissipative system , physics , electron , wave packet , ion , plasma , quantum , quantum mechanics , dephasing , operator (biology) , field (mathematics) , atomic physics , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , repressor , transcription factor , pure mathematics , gene
Localization of electron and ion states in a plasma is considered, applying the picture of a test particle in a dissipative environment. The plasma environment is represented by the dielectric function. For the reduced statistical operator a quantum master equation in Born‐Markov‐approximation can be used to quantify the influence of the dissipative background, which gives rise to decoherence and friction. We compare localization of ions due to collisional decoherence with the electronic part with screened interaction and localization by the thermal radiation field. The usual procedure to treat ions classically and electrons as quantum objects is supported by comparing the width of robust states and the mean distance in plasmas. (© 2007 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)