Strong coupling theory for tunneling and vibrational relaxation in driven bistable systems (Q5949953)

The paper presents a systematic analysis of a problem of tunneling between two asymmetric and, generally speaking, time-dependent potential wells which contain a large number of doublet levels, in the presence of a strong coupling to a thermal bath. An analytical approach is based on restricting the quantum dynamics to a Hilbert space that spans a finite number of lowest-energy eignemodes. In this reduced space, the authors derive a non-Markovian master equation for the evolution of the density matrix. Using the master equation, a number of results are obtained for quantum relaxation rates and asymptotic evolution of population of levels. Comparison of the analytical results with \textit{ab initio} numerical computations shows good agreement.