Quantum noise (Q1202001): Difference between revisions

That randomness is intrinsic to the microscopic world is pretty much established by now. The mathematical theory describing the peculiar way of computing the probabilities of relevant events is known as quantum theory. Once probabilities are produced, they are manipulated using the (classical) calculus of probabilities that we all (should) know. There is a class of situations in which classical and quantum probabilities mix up: In statistical physics you have so many degrees of freedom that you are not interested in specifying the state of the system anymore. Instead you assign (classical) probabilities of occupation of the microscopic or quantum states of the system. Besides that, even when the system under scrutiny has few degrees of freedom, it may be coupled to a system with very many (perhaps infinite) degrees of freedom or perhaps to a system easily modeled as random. Take for example an atom inside a cavity, subject to the electromagnetic field produced by the atoms in the walls of the cavity. The book deals with the different aspects of the kinematics and the dynamics of such systems. In the first two chapters the basics, as well as a description of the key issues to be dealt with later, are presented. Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6 are devoted to the different issues of establishing the kinetic equations that describe the time evolution of the systems to be dealt with, with lots of examples along the way. Actually, deriving kinetic equations from first principles is a sticky problem. In most of the physical literature, and this book is no exception, you will be offered lots of ``handwaving'' and hypotheses thrown along the way. To begin looking for more rigorous literature, have regard to Spohn and also look into \textit{S. M. Ermakov}, \textit{V. V. Nekrutkin} and \textit{A. S. Sipin}'s book [Random processes for classical equations of mathematical physics (1989; Zbl 0691.60073)] for the probabilists' approach to similar problems. Chapters 7, 8, 9 and 10 are devoted to a variety of interesting problems. To be fair, it is in describing concrete cases where physicists ``verify'' the correctness of the product of their procedures: the kinetic equations describe well an important and large class of applications. The author implicitly assumes that the reader is familiar with the basics of his ``Handbook of stochastic methods for physics, chemistry and natural sciences'' (1990; Zbl 0713.60076). I think important and related work by \textit{A. S. Holevo} [Probabilistic and statistical aspects of quantum theory (1982; Zbl 0497.46053)] and \textit{C. W. Helstrom} [Quantum detection and estimation theory (Acad. Press, 1976)] should have been mentioned. But perhaps it is unknown to the author.