Quantum mechanical description of energy dissipation and application to heavy-ion fusion reactions

For theoretical description of heavy-ion fusion reactions, two different models have been used depending on the incident energy. At energies above the Coulomb barrier, importance of energy dissipation and fluctuation has been deduced from scattering experiments. To describe them phenomenologically, the classical Langevin equation has successfully been applied. At energies below the Coulomb barrier, on the other hand, the quantum coupled-channels method with a few number of internal states has been applied, and it has succeeded in explaining sub-barrier fusion reactions. While each method succeeds in each energy range, a unified description of heavy-ion fusion reactions from sub-barrier energies to above barrier energies is still missing. To achieve this, we need to treat dissipation and fluctuation quantum mechanically.

In order to describe dissipation and fluctuation quantum mechanically, we have applied ideas of open quantum systems to heavy-ion fusion reactions. I will talk about recent development in this talk. First I will introduce a model Hamiltonian to treat dissipation and fluctuation quantum mechanically, and explain its character and a strategy for numerical studies. I will then apply the model to a fusion problem, and discuss a role of energy dissipation during quantum tunneling. Finally I will discuss a possible future direction for a unified description of heavy-ion fusion reactions.