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# Transport via a quantum shuttle

## I Introduction

Electron tunneling rates through mesoscopic junctions are strongly modulated by changes in the physical extent of the barriers which can arise from excitation of vibrational degrees of freedom.jn ; jn2  The tunneling rate of electrons through insulating barriers has an exponential dependence on the physical extent of the barriers and so is sensitive to even relatively small changes in their size. In standard semiconductor structures the components are rigidly fixed so that fluctuations in the widths of tunnel barriers are relatively unimportant. However, whenever electron transport occurs across flexible tunnel barriers modulation of the barrier widths due to vibrations is expected to affect the tunneling. The perturbation of tunneling processes across a single mesoscopic junction by a mechanical degree of freedom has been analysed in some detail, and is now relatively well understood.jn ; jn2  However, when there are two or more flexible junctions connected in series more complicated effects arise, in particular excitation of vibrational degrees of freedom can lead to shuttling of electrons between the junctions.

The idea of a mesoscopic electron shuttle in which a vibrational degree of freedom modulates tunneling rates across two junctions in turn was proposed recently by Gorelik *et al.*Gk  (although a fully classical charge shuttle is far from newclass ). Gorelik *et al.* considered a system in which electrons are transported between two leads by a small metallic grain embedded in an elastic medium. The interaction between charges on the grain and the leads couples to the position of the oscillator leading to a dynamic instability. Electrons tunnel onto the grain from one of the leads, resulting in a Coulombic repulsion which drives the grain towards the other lead where the electrons tunnel off: hence vibrations of the grain shuttle electrons between leads. In the model of Gorelik *et al.* the electron tunneling is treated within the orthodox theory of single electron tunneling, whilst the elastic medium is treated as a classical oscillator.

A mesoscopic shuttle device similar in some respects to that proposed by Gorelik *et al.* has been fabricated by Blick *et al.* blick ; blick2  The device closely resembles a miniaturised bell clapper, consisting of two tunneling contacts with a cantilever in between. However, the cantilever does not ‘ring’ (i.e. shuttle electrons) spontaneously, but instead is driven by strong gate voltages applied across the cantilever itself (away from the tunneling contacts). The rate of electron tunneling can be controlled by the amplitude of the drive when it is tuned to one of the natural frequencies of the cantilever. Electron transport in this system can again be understood within orthodox single electron tunneling theory, modified to account for position dependent behavior in the tunneling rates.blick2 ; weiss

Systems in which electron transport between two contacts is mediated by a vibrational mode of a self-assembled structure have also been investigated.nat ; sa  The most striking example of such a system is the $`C_{60}`$ single electron transistor, fabricated by Park *et al.*nat  In this device, a single $`C_{60}`$ molecule was deposited in a narrow gap between gold electrodes. The current flowing through the device was found to increase sharply whenever the applied voltage was sufficient to excite vibrations of the molecule about the minima of the van der Waals potential between it and the electrodes, or an internal mode of the molecule itself.nat ; boese ; nish2

The device fabricated by Park *et al.* is an example of a molecular electronic devicemolec  in which electrical conduction occurs through single molecules connected to conventional leads. The junctions between molecular components and leads will be much more flexible than those in conventional solid-state nanostructures and fluctuations in their width may modify their current characteristics significantly. Furthermore, vibrational modes of the molecular components themselves may play an important role in determining the transport properties.gaud

Variations in the widths of tunnel barriers are also expected to have an important effect on the transport properties of nanoparticle chains.nish  Nanoparticle chains consist of small metal grains stabilised by ligands, with electronic transport occurring via tunneling between the metal particles. Because of the relative softness of the ligand matrix, vibrations of the metal grains can significantly modify the electronic tunneling rates.

In the present work, electron tunneling through an electromechanical system in the extreme quantum mechanical and Coulomb blockade limits is investigated. Our interest is focused on the case where the width of the tunnel barriers for electrons are modulated by a quantum mechanical vibrational degree of freedom. We analyse a model shuttle system consisting of a row of three quantum dots in which the central dot is mounted on a quantum harmonic oscillator.

The model considered here is simplified in many respects so that it is possible to build up an understanding of the characteristics of the transport which occurs when there is strong coupling between the electronic degrees of freedom and the displacement of a quantum harmonic oscillator. We assume that the capacitance of the central grain or dot, and the outer dots is sufficiently high that transport is confined to the Coulomb blockade regime. Furthermore, we assume that the electronic states of the system are coherent. We use the language of semiconductor nanostructures, describing our system in terms of quantum dots, because it provides a convenient short-hand for what is in effect a localised electronic state. In practice, what we refer to quantum dots could be actual semiconductor dots, large molecules or metallic nanoparticles. Similarly, the oscillator could be an ultra-high frequency mechanical resonator with a dot mounted on its tip, like that studied by Blick *et al.*,blick  alternatively the oscillator mode could arise from vibration of the central ‘dot’ within a stabilising elastic medium or the potential confining it between the outer dots.

We find that the current characteristics of the model shuttle can largely be understood by analysing the eigenspectrum of the isolated system of three dots and the quantum oscillator. Tunnel coupling of the dot states, to each other and to the position of the oscillator, leads to repulsion of the eigenvalues and mixing of the eigenstates associated with states localised on individual dots. The mixed states consist of superpositions of the states associated with the individual dots and hence lead to delocalisation of the electronic states between the dots. Analysis of the current which flows when the shuttle is weakly coupled to leads, reveals strong resonances corresponding to the occurrence of the delocalised states. The current through the shuttle is found to depend sensitively on the amount by which the oscillator is damped, the strength of the couplings between the dots and the background temperature. A preliminary account of some of these findings has been given elsewhere.us

The organisation of the paper is as follows. In section II we describe the details of our model shuttle system. We introduce the Hamiltonian of the system and describe how coupling to external leads can be taken into account. In section III we examine the eigenspectrum of the system as a function of the difference in energy between the levels in the fixed dots. The current characteristics of the device are described in section IV. A summary and discussion of the results is given in section V. Details of how the Hamiltonian can be approximated by a finite matrix are given in appendix A and the derivation of the density matrix equation of motion is outlined in appendix B.

## II Model Formulation

We begin by detailing the model Hamiltonian which we use to describe the behavior of the shuttle system. The shuttle consists of a linear chain of three quantum dots and a single vibrational mode, as shown schematically in Fig. 1. The physical locations of the two outer dots are fixed, while the central dot is mounted on the vibrational mode whose behavior is modelled by a quantum oscillator. The electronic part of the system is idealised: each of the dots is represented by a single, localised, energy state. The dynamics of electron transport through the system is analysed using the density matrix formalism as this allows couplings to external leads and the effects of the oscillator’s environment to be incorporated most conveniently.

### II.1 Tight–binding model

Within the Coulomb blockade regime, the charging energy of adding more than one electron to the shuttle is assumed to be sufficiently high that only one transport electron can occupy the chain of three dots at any one time. Therefore, the electronic degrees of freedom of the isolated system can be represented completely by the state in which none of the dots are occupieddd1 ; dd1a  $`|0`$ and the three localised states associated with the lefthand, central and righthand dots: $`|l`$, $`|c`$ and $`|r`$ respectively. The system is modelled by a tight-binding Hamiltonian of the form

$`H`$ $`=`$ $`\epsilon _l|ll|+\epsilon _r|rr|+\epsilon _c(\widehat{x})|cc|+\mathrm{}\omega \widehat{d}^{}\widehat{d}`$
$`V\mathrm{e}^{\alpha [x_0+\widehat{x}]}(|cl|+|lc|)`$
$`V\mathrm{e}^{\alpha [x_0\widehat{x}]}(|cr|+|rc|),`$
where $`|ii|`$, $`i=l,c,r`$, are projection operators for the three electronic states and the vibrational mode, frequency $`\omega `$, is operated on by $`\widehat{d}`$. The tunneling elements between the dots depend exponentially on the displacement operator of the vibrational mode, $`\widehat{x}=\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}(\widehat{d}^{}+\widehat{d})`$, where $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}`$ is the zero-point position uncertainty of the oscillator. The oscillator position has an expectation value of zero when the oscillator is unperturbed. The tunneling amplitude and length are given by the positive quantities $`V`$ and $`1/\alpha `$ respectively. Although we have not stated it explicitly, it is understood that the potential energy of the vibrational modes has a hard wall cut-off at the left and righthand dots (i.e., at $`x=\pm x_0`$).

The energies of the outer two dots, $`\epsilon _{l(r)}`$, together define a voltage bias across the device, $`eV_b=\epsilon _b=\epsilon _l\epsilon _r`$. The energy of the central level is set by its position between the outer dots as we assume that it undergoes a Stark shift proportional to its positionthree  so that $`\epsilon _c=\epsilon _l(\widehat{x}+x_0)\epsilon _b/2x_0`$.comment  The energy levels in the outer dots are set by external gates whose capacitance is assumed to be much larger than the capacitances of the other junctions (i.e. the junctions between the dots and the junctions between the outer dots and the leads), but still small enough that only one of the dots can be occupied by an electron at any one time.

The behavior of the shuttle system is readily investiagted by numerical methods. The Hamiltonian and density operators are represented as matrices, as described in appendix A, and the time evolution of the system can be obtained numerically for any initial form of the density matrix. However, the vibrational degree of freedom is only completely specified by an infinite set of states which must be truncated for numerical calculations. The necessary truncation is best performed in the basis of the (unperturbed) energy eigenstates of the vibrational mode (see appendix A). So long as the energy of the highest energy state included is much larger than any other energy scale in the problem, then the error due to truncation is small.

### II.2 Coupling to leads

The transport properties of the shuttle system coupled to the leads are obtained by integrating an equation of motion for the density matrix appropriate to an open quantum system. Apart from the internal dynamics of the shuttle, there are two effects we need to take account of. Couplings between the electronic states in the outer dots and the leads must be incorporated, and the coupling between the oscillator and its environment must also be included.

The external couplings of the outer dots and oscillator are accounted for in the dynamics via additional terms in the equation of motion for the reduced density matrix of the shuttle, an approach which is well–known in the field of quantum optics and has recently been applied to problems of electron transport in nanostructures.dd1 ; gurvitz  The electrons in the leads are assumed to be completely incoherent which means that all the off-diagonal elements of the density matrix between the state $`|0`$ and the other electronic states can be set to zero (notice, however, that the diagonal element in the density matrix for $`|0`$ has both diagonal and off-diagonal matrix elements in the space of the vibrational mode states).

The appropriate equation of motion for the density matrix of the system generalised to include the leads and the environment of the oscillator therefore takes the general form

$$\dot{\rho }=\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}[H,\rho ]+\mathrm{\Xi }\rho +\dot{\rho }_d$$
(2)
where the ‘decay matrix’, $`\mathrm{\Xi }`$, incorporates transitions between the leads and the outer dots and $`\dot{\rho }_d`$ accounts for the decohering and dissipative effects of the oscillator’s environment. The form of the non-unitary terms can be derived by adapting standard techniques used in the field of quantum optics and we will consider them both in turn.qo

The form of decay matrix coupling the shuttle to the leads can be obtained using the method of Gurvitz *et al.*,gurvitz  as described in appendix B. The components of the matrix, $`[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho ]_{ab}^{ij}`$, are labelled by the vibrational state (superscripts) and the electronic states (subscripts). The matrix is Hermitian and is specified by the componentsmat

$`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{ll}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{00}^{ij}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (3)
$`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{rr}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\rho _{rr}^{ij}\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ (4)
$`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{00}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\rho _{00}^{ij}\rho _{rr}^{ij})`$ (5)
$`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{rc}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2}}\rho _{rc}^{ij}`$ (6)
$`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{lr}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }}{2}}\rho _{lr}^{ij}`$ (7)
$`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{cc}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{lc}^{ij}=0,`$ (8)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is the tunneling rate between the dots and the leads, and all terms $`\left[\mathrm{\Xi }\rho \right]_{0a}^{ij}`$ where $`a0`$ are zero as the associated elements of the density matrix ($`\rho _{0a}^{ij}`$ with $`a0`$) are zero by definition.

Including the environment of the vibrational mode is essential to the description as it is the dissipation arising from this coupling which gives rise to a steady-state in which the current is constant, as we discuss below. We employ a minimal model of the environment, assuming it to be composed of a bath of oscillators at a fixed temperature $`T`$, to which the vibrational mode is coupled only weakly. Under these assumptions the dissipative component in the equation of motion for the density matrix, is given byqo

$`\dot{\rho }_d`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}\overline{n}(\widehat{d}\widehat{d}^{}\rho 2\widehat{d}^{}\rho \widehat{d}+\rho \widehat{d}\widehat{d}^{})`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}(\overline{n}+1)(\widehat{d}^{}\widehat{d}\rho 2\widehat{d}\rho \widehat{d}^{}+\rho \widehat{d}^{}\widehat{d}),`$
where $`\gamma `$ is the classical damping rate of the oscillator, and $`\overline{n}`$, is the usual thermal occupation number of the oscillator at temperature $`T`$,

$$\overline{n}=\frac{1}{\mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{}\omega /k_\mathrm{B}T}1}.$$
(10)
The classical damping rate is just the rate at which the vibrational mode loses energy due to frictional forces, its value can be obtained empirically from the quality factor of the oscillator,qo ; jn2  $`\gamma =\omega /Q`$.

The steady-state current through the system (in units of electrons per unit time) is given by

$$\frac{I}{e}=\mathrm{\Gamma }\rho _{rr}^{(s)},$$
(11)
where $`\rho _{rr}^{(s)}`$ is the occupation probability of the righthand dot when a steady state has been achieved. In practice the current is determined after evolving the equation of motion for the density matrix until further changes with time become negligible.

The discrete nature of the states in the dots has an important effect on the ways in which energy can be transferred in the shuttle. An electron travelling through the shuttle must enter at an energy determined by the level in the lefthand dot and leave at the energy determined by the lower level in the righthand dot. Hence each electron travelling through the device dissipates an amount of energy proportional to the bias voltage. For a system without an oscillator,three  the energy is dissipated in the lead with the lower chemical potential. However, for the shuttle we consider here, some of the energy ends up in the oscillator—rather like the electron ‘pump’ considered by Stafford and Wingreen in reverse.dd2  Despite this apparent pumping mechanism for the oscillator, the degree to which the oscillator can be excited is strongly limited by damping and a steady-state is always achieved when this effect is included.note3

## III Eigenvalue dynamics of the isolated shuttle

For a system in which the coupling to external leads and the environmentthree  is much weaker than the coupling between the dots (i.e. when $`\mathrm{\Gamma },\gamma V\mathrm{e}^{\alpha x_0}/\mathrm{}`$), the current characteristics are expected to be strongly influenced by the eigenstates of the isolated system. Under these conditions, we can think of the eigenstates of the system, which in general are not localised on any one dot, as forming independent channels for conduction. The current is carried most effectively by those eigenstates in which there is a finite probability of finding an electron in both the left and righthand dots, and the characteristics of the eigenstates can be determined from the behavior of the corresponding eigenvalues. Therefore we examine dynamics of the eigenvalues as a function of the bias voltage in the uncoupled shuttle system before going on to consider the corresponding behavior of the current in the coupled system.

The eigenvalue spectrum of the shuttle at zero bias voltage is controlled by the relative values of the energy scales of the oscillator, $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, and the tunneling matrix element, $`V`$; and by the length-scales $`x_0`$ and $`1/\alpha `$. The eigenvalue dynamics in the limit where the dots are uncoupled (i.e. $`V=0`$) is illustrated in Fig. 2a \[note that all the energies in the figures are measured in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, and the distances are measured in units of $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}`$\]. The energy levels at zero-bias are three-fold degenerate states separated by $`\mathrm{}\omega `$. For small applied bias, the splittings between energy levels are linear. The spacing between the sets of three levels at zero-bias are not exactly $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, but increase slightly with energy. This is because the oscillator is in fact confined by hard wall potentials which it begins to feel at higher energies, leading to an increase in the eigenenergies.

When the electronic states are decoupled the individual dot states are readily identified: the left and righthand dot energy levels increase and decrease respectively with increasing voltage bias, whilst the energy of the central-dot electronic states drop off quadratically (this state is equivalent to an oscillator in a linear potential). The eigenvalues for the left and righthand energy levels cross for $`\epsilon _bn\mathrm{}\omega `$ with $`n`$ an integer. For $`\epsilon _b2\mathrm{}\omega `$, the crossing of the left and righthand-dot energy levels almost coincides with the central-dot energy level. The level crossings of the lower eigenvalues occur at almost precisely integer values of $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, but at higher energies the level crossings drift to larger bias values because of the increased spacing between levels at zero-bias.

For finite values of the tunneling matrix element, $`V`$, the eigenvalue dynamics as a function of $`\epsilon _b`$ becomes more complex, as shown in Fig. 2. The energy levels at zero-bias split so that the degeneracy of the levels is lifted. At finite bias the levels no longer cross, but instead repel each other. The strength of the level repulsion depends strongly on $`V`$, but the oscillator state also plays a role as larger number states for the oscillator lead to stronger couplings between levels. However, away from the anti-crossings, the levels vary with $`\epsilon _b`$ in almost the same way as for the decoupled case, implying that the eigenvalues in these regions can still be associated with states localised on the individual dots.

The level repulsions which occur at $`\epsilon _bn\mathrm{}\omega `$ for finite $`V`$ have a different character for odd and even values of $`n`$. For odd values of $`n`$, levels associated with the left and righthand dots anti-cross, leading to mixing of the levels. For even values of $`n`$, levels associated with the central dot mix first with levels associated with the lefthand dot and then with levels associated with the righthand dot within a very narrow range of $`\epsilon _b`$. The simultaneous curvature of the three levels implies that, over a narrow range of $`\epsilon _b`$, the mixing involves all of them. The lefthand dot level mixes with the central dot level first partly because the central dot level curves downwards, and partly because the lefthand dot level is associated with a less excited state of the oscillator which lies closer to the central dot level at zero-bias than the righthand dot level.

In the vicinity of the level anti-crossings states associated with either the lefthand and righthand dots, or with all three dots, become strongly mixed. The mixing of these levels implies that the electron will be highly delocalised near the anti-crossings, leading to a strong enhancement of the current through the shuttle. The variation in the location and strength of anti-crossings of levels (and hence mixings of states associated with different dots) with the eigenvalue energy implies that the actual current characteristics will be sensitive to the energy of the shuttle in the steady state.

At zero bias the system will be at resonance as the dot energy levels will be aligned, and we expect a large current to flow. However, the large current at zero bias can also be understood in terms of the current channels formed by the eigenstates. At very small bias energies the eigenvalues for finite $`V`$ have a quadratic dispersion, and the eigenstates are composed of almost symmetrical mixtures of the lefthand, central and righthand dot states and hence are highly delocalised.sym

In studying the eigenspectra and the steady-state current we concentrate on a range of bias values of a few $`\mathrm{}\omega `$, for a combination of reasons. As the bias voltage increases, the eigenspectra become more complex. The spread in the locations of the anti-crossings with eigenenergy increases with $`\epsilon _b`$ and the energies of the levels which anti-cross increase. The complexity of the eigenspectra at large values of $`\epsilon _b`$ means that it will become increasingly difficult to understand the current characteristics of the system by reference to the eigenspectrum. Furthermore, our simple modelling of the electronic part of the system, including only a single energy level for each dot, will become increasingly unreliable as the bias is increased and higher levels in the dots become accessible.

## IV Current characteristics

In order to obtain the current characteristics of the shuttle system we integrate the equation of motion for the density matrix from a given initial state, until a steady state is obtained. The steady state is achieved when the energy gained by the oscillator from the electrons is matched by losses due to damping by the surrounding medium.

The steady-state current for a chain of quantum dots at fixed positions has been studied extensively.three ; dd1a ; extra ; angus1 ; angus2  In the Coulomb blockade regime, it is found that if the energy level in each of the dots is shifted by an amount proportional to its position (forming a ‘Stark ladder’), the decay in current with the shift in energy levels is rapid.three  For the shuttle, we find that the presence of the oscillator leads to significant changes in the current characteristics.

We begin by analysing the simplest case, where the dots are strongly coupled to each other (and weakly coupled to the leads) and the temperature is set to zero. In this regime the current characteristics can be understood in terms of the energy eigenspectrum of the system and the effect of the oscillator’s environment which causes scattering between the eigenstates. However, we also consider the behavior when the tunneling length of the electrons is reduced, so that the coupling between the dots becomes weak, as it is in this regime that current can flow by hopping onto then off the central dot sequentially, in a manner very reminiscent of the semi-classical shuttles.Gk ; blick ; blick2 ; weiss  Furthermore, in practice, temperature will play an important role and so we extend our analysis to small but finite temperatures. Working at finite temperatures complicates the numerical calculation as it naturally increases the importance of higher energy oscillator states. This means that care needs to be taken in truncating the matrix of oscillator states (as described in appendix A) to ensure that the results obtained do not depend strongly on the size of the truncated Hamiltonian matrix. The errors due to truncation only become significant for temperatures such that $`\mathrm{}\omega k_\mathrm{B}T`$. The matrix method can readily be adapted to investigate the effect of temperature when $`\mathrm{}\omega k_\mathrm{B}T`$.

The initial state of the system describes the initial wavefunctions of the electronic and oscillator parts of the system. The initial form of electronic part of the wavefunction is unimportant: it simply describes the initial probabilities of finding an electron on each of the dots, which does not in practice affect the form of the steady state which is later achieved. However, the initial state of the oscillator is of some importance as it depends on the background temperature, but at zero temperature, the oscillator is initially in its ground state.

The steady-state current through the dots as a function of $`\epsilon _b`$ with and without the oscillator is illustrated in Fig. 3 for the case of strong coupling between the dots. The tunneling rate to the leads is $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=0.05`$ and the damping rate for the quantum oscillator is $`\gamma =0.025`$ \[all rates are measured in units of $`\omega `$\].

When the bias is zero, all three dot levels are aligned leading to resonant transmission of electrons. Without the oscillator, the current decays rapidly with increasing bias, $`\epsilon _b`$, as expected. When the oscillator is present, the current initially decays with increasing bias, though more slowly than before, but at larger values of $`\epsilon _b`$ prominent current resonances dominate the behavior.

For strong coupling between the dots (compared to the couplings to the leads), the current peaks are best described in terms of the conduction channels formed by the eigenstates of the shuttle system. Comparison of the current peaks in Fig. 3 with the corresponding eigenspectrum in Fig. 2 shows that the resonances coincide with avoided-level crossings where the eigenstates are formed from mixtures of states localised on the individual dots. Further resonances should occur at higher values of $`\epsilon _b`$, but the model will eventually break down when the shift in levels exceeds the energy level spacing in the dots themselves. The peak in the current at zero bias arises because the eigenstates for $`\epsilon _b=0`$ each consist of (symmetrical) mixtures of the states associated with each of the dots. Of course the peak at zero bias can also be seen as due to resonant tunneling through the shuttle.

The second current peak, which occurs at $`\epsilon _b0.86`$ (in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega `$), is due to the mixing of levels associated with the left and righthand dots. The resulting eigenstates are symmetrical as they contain almost equal weights for the left and righthand dots (i.e. in these states the probability of finding the electron on the left and righthand dots are are almost equal). The third current peak occurs at $`\epsilon _b1.95`$, and corresponds to a mixing of the central dot level, more or less simultaneously, with both left and righthand dot levels. In this case the resulting eigenstates are not entirely symmetrical: there are larger weights for the lefthand dot in some states and larger weights for the righthand dots in others. The fourth current peak, occuring at $`\epsilon _b2.92`$, is similar to the second peak, in that it too is due to the mixing of levels associated with the left and righthand dots. The magnitude of the fourth current peak is rather lower than that of the second peak, partly because the left and righthand dot levels which are mixed (at $`\epsilon _b2.92`$), correspond to oscillator states differing by three quanta (whereas states differing by only one oscillator quantum are mixed at $`\epsilon _b0.86`$), and partly because anti-crossings progressively disappear from the lower part of the energy spectrum as the bias is increased.

### IV.1 Effects of oscillator damping

The dynamics of the system is strongly influenced by the magnitude of the oscillator damping, $`\gamma `$. Without any damping, the oscillator would gain energy continuously from the electrons and no steady state would be achieved (without including higher electronic levels). The effect of $`\gamma `$ in producing a steady state can be seen by examining the average energy of the shuttle as a function of time.

The average energy is readily computed from the density matrix and Hamiltonian of the system (suitably generalised to account for the energy of the oscillator when none of the dots are occupied). Fig. 4 shows the evolution of the average energy, $`E=\mathrm{Tr}[H\rho ]`$, as a function of time for a range of different damping constants. The average energy at $`t=0`$ is given by the initial state of the system with the oscillator in its ground state and an electron present on the lefthand dot (the bias energy, $`\epsilon _b=0.86`$, corresponds to a peak in the current). For each value of $`\gamma `$, the average energy varies with time before eventually settling down to a constant value, indicating that the system has reached a steady-state.

The time taken to reach the steady-state, and the average energy in that state vary considerably. For $`\gamma 0.025`$ the oscillator appears to be ‘critically damped’ in the sense that the energy in the steady-state is roughly the initial energy of the system. In contrast, for $`\gamma >0.025`$ the system achieves a steady state by losing energy to the environment, implying over-damping of the oscillator. As soon as the electron leaves the lefthand dot and moves to states on the other dots at lower energies, some of the initial energy is dissipated into the environment via the oscillator. When $`\gamma <0.025`$, the oscillator is under-damped and the system gains energy from the electron reservoirs as successive electrons pass through the system until a steady state is eventually achieved. For the underdamped case, the time taken to achieve the steady-state is longer than for either critical or over-damping and it eventually diverges when $`\gamma `$ is set to zero.

The value of the oscillator damping also has a strong effect on the magnitude of the steady-state current through the shuttle, as shown in Fig. 5. The way in which $`\gamma `$ affects the current depends sensitively on the value of $`\epsilon _b`$. The first and second current peaks are almost unaffected by the variation in the oscillator damping constant, $`\gamma `$, whilst damping of the oscillator increases the current at the third peak and decreases it at the fourth peak. The reason for this differing behavior is readily understood in terms of a picture of independent conduction channels arising from the eigenstates of the shuttle. If the damping is weak, it can be thought of as causing scattering between channels with slightly differing energies. Therefore, damping can increase the current wherever scattering can transfer electrons from channels with a larger weights on the lefthand dot (where the electrons enter the system) to ones with large weights on the righthand dot (from which the electron leaves the system). At the first and second current peaks the states which carry the current are largely symmetrical, in that they contain almost equal weights for the left and righthand dots, so the damping cannot increase the current. In contrast, at the third peak the current can increase as there is considerable asymmetry between nearby eigenstates. At the fourth current peak, increasing the damping reduces the current because at this bias energy the current is very sensitive to the reduction in the average energy caused by the higher damping.

### IV.2 Current in weak coupling regime

At larger values of $`\alpha `$ (i.e. for smaller tunneling lengths $`\lambda =1/\alpha `$) the coupling between the dots grows weaker and the picture of the current as arising from the passage of electrons through weakly coupled eigenstates acting as conduction channels begins to break down. Instead we must think of the electrons as tunneling between states localised on the individual dots.

When the bias energy is $`\mathrm{}\omega `$ or $`3\mathrm{}\omega `$ the electrons must tunnel coherently from the lefthand dot to the righthand dot via a virtual (non-energy conserving) transition to the central dot. However, when the bias energy is $`2\mathrm{}\omega `$ electrons can tunnel through the system incoherently via two separate tunneling events in each of which a quanta of energy is dumped in the oscillator. Of course when $`\epsilon _b=0`$ there is no need to dump energy into the oscillator and all tunneling processes through the central dot conserve energy.

The effect of increasing $`\alpha `$ is shown clearly in Fig. 6: the second and fourth peaks are strongly suppressed, whilst the third peak is only slightly reduced. As the tunneling length becomes smaller, coherent tunneling directly between the left and righthand dots becomes more difficult. However, electrons can still flow through the device by tunneling onto the central dot and then off again later in a sequence of two separate tunneling events, i.e. current flows by shuttling of electrons through the central dot.

As for strongly coupled dots, an increase in damping of the oscillator enhances the current when $`\epsilon _b2\mathrm{}\omega `$. When the coupling between the dots is weak the damping assists current flow by removing energy from the oscillator and thereby helps prevent electrons from tunneling backwards (i.e from the righthand dot to the central dot or from the central dot to the righthand dot).

### IV.3 Finite temperatures

The effects of finite temperature on the current characteristics of the shuttle can be taken into account by generalising the initial state of the oscillator to a thermal mixture and modifying the damping terms (described in section II) to take account of the environment’s temperature. As long as the temperature does not approach the charging energies associated with the Coulomb blockade on the dots, no adjustment to the electronic part of the model is required.

Fig. 7 compares the current through the shuttle for a particular choice of parameters at $`k_\mathrm{B}T=0`$ and $`k_\mathrm{B}T=3`$ (in units of $`\mathrm{}\omega `$). The finite temperature has two noticeable effects. Firstly, the current characteristics are smeared out: the peaks are broader and lower, while the troughs are shallower. Secondly, the maxima of the peaks are shifted to slightly higher bias energies.

The effect of finite temperature on the current is readily interpreted with reference to the eigenspectra in Fig. 2. The finite temperature increases the average energy of the system, whilst also broadening the distribution of probabilities of finding the system in a given state. The broadening of the probability distribution implies that a whole range of states contribute to the current, each of which have anti-crossings occuring at different values of $`\epsilon _b`$, leading to a broadening of the current peaks. The overall increase in the average energy leads to a general increase in the current because of the increased strength in the anti-crossings at higher energies, especially at larger values of $`\epsilon _b`$ where anti-crossings no longer occur in the lower parts of the eigenspectrum.

## V Conclusions and discussion

We have investigated the effect of a quantised vibrational degree of freedom on transport through a chain of three quantum dots where the tunneling between the dots depends exponentially on the displacement of the oscillator. When the dots are strongly coupled to each other and weakly coupled to the leads, the current through the chain can be predicted by looking at where anti-crossings in the eigenspectrum give rise to electronic states which are delocalised amongst the dots.

The damping of the oscillator due to coupling to its environment has important effects on the current flowing through the system. The current through the shuttle only reaches a steady value when the energy pumped into it from the electrons is balanced by the dissipation due to the oscillator’s environment. For weak damping, the environment can be thought of as causing scattering between different current channels. The scattering enhances the current whenever it can transfer electrons from states strongly concentrated on the lefthand dot to ones strongly concentrated on the righthand dot. However, when the eigenstates contain equal probabilities of finding the electron on the lefthand and righthand dots, scattering has no effect on the current.

When the tunneling length is reduced the effective coupling between the dots is also reduced and the picture in terms of independent conduction channels can no longer be applied. Instead we can think of the electrons as passing through the shuttle via transitions between states localised on each of the dots. When the energy difference is an odd number of vibrational quanta, current flow is via a virtual transition. In contrast, when the energy difference is an even number of vibrational quanta, electrons can tunnel sequentially onto and then off the central dot. The virtual transitions are strongly suppressed by reductions in the tunneling length of the electron. However, the sequential transitions—electrons hopping on and then off the central dot—are much less affected by changes in the tunneling length.

The transport of electrons through the central dot via sequential tunneling, is analogous to the semi-classical models of electron-shuttling.weiss ; Gk  As in the case of the experiments of Blick et al.,blick ; blick2  the vibrational mode is driven and current flows by electrons tunneling onto the central dot and then tunneling off in the opposite direction at a later time. However, for the system we consider the driving energy comes from the electrons themselves as the difference in dot energy levels forces them to lose energy to the oscillator.

The shuttling mechanism dominates over higher order processes when the tunneling length, $`\lambda `$, is of order the zero-point position uncertainty of the oscillator, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}`$, and can give rise to a larger current than at the electronic resonance (i.e. when $`\epsilon _b=0`$). However, the sharp features in the current characteristics begin to be smeared out when $`k_\mathrm{B}T>\mathrm{}\omega `$.

In order to have $`k_\mathrm{B}Tsim\mathrm{}\omega `$ in the range 0.1–1K the frequency of the oscillator must be $`1`$–10GHz. This high frequency range is accessible in a wide variety of systems: the elastic links in nanopartice arrays have frequenciesnish  $`10`$GHz, micromechanical resonators can be fabricated with frequencies approaching 1GHz,ghz  and indeed the vibrational modes in many molecular systems have much higher frequencies.nat  The tunneling length depends on the work function of the surfaces involved, but typically lies in the rangeGk  $`0.05`$$`3`$ Å. Unfortunately, raising the frequency of the oscillator reduces the zero-point position uncertainty, $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}=\sqrt{\mathrm{}/2m\omega }`$, but the effective masses of even artifically fabricated oscillators can be extremely small (for example nanoparticles can have massesnish  $`10^{23}`$kg). Therefore, it should be possible to fabricate or assemble systems in which both $`\lambda \mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}`$ and $`k_\mathrm{B}T\mathrm{}\omega `$, and thereby observe electron shuttling in the quantum regime.

One of us (A.M.) would like to thank The Cavendish Laboratory, at the University of Cambridge, for their hospitality. This work was funded by the EPSRC under grant GR/M42909/01.

## Appendix A Hamiltonian in matrix form

The Hamiltonian of the isolated system of three dots and an oscillator has three electronic states and a number of vibrational states which is in principle infinite, but which in practice we limit to a number $`N25`$ so that the largest energy state of the oscillator ($`E_{max}=N\mathrm{}\omega `$) is much greater than any other energy scale in the problem.

The full Hamiltonian for the shuttle consists of nine $`N\times N`$ sub-matricies, corresponding to the three electronic states and the tunneling elements between them

$$H=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}H_{LL}& H_{LC}& H_{LR}\\ H_{CL}& H_{CC}& H_{CR}\\ H_{RL}& H_{RC}& H_{RR}\end{array}\right).$$
(12)
The sub-matrices have rows and columns labelled in a suitable basis of the the oscillator states. In the number representation of the oscillator states the diagonal sub-matrices take the form

$`n|H_{LL}|m`$ $`=`$ $`(\epsilon _l+m\mathrm{}\omega )\delta _{nm}`$ (13)
$`n|H_{CC}|m`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\epsilon _d}{\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}}}n|(\widehat{x}+x_0)|m`$ (14)
$`+(\epsilon _l+m\mathrm{}\omega )\delta _{nm}`$
$`n|H_{RR}|m`$ $`=`$ $`(\epsilon _r+m\mathrm{}\omega )\delta _{nm},`$ (15)
where $`\epsilon _d=\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}(\epsilon _r\epsilon _l)/2x_0`$, with $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{zp}`$ the zero-point position uncertainty of the oscillator. Of the other sub-matrices, only those coupling adjacent dots (i.e. $`H_{LC}`$ and $`H_{CR}`$, and their Hermitian conjugates) are non-zero,

$`n|H_{LC}|m`$ $`=`$ $`Vn|\mathrm{e}^{\alpha [x_0+\widehat{x}]}|m`$ (17)
$`n|H_{CR}|m`$ $`=`$ $`Vn|\mathrm{e}^{\alpha [x_0\widehat{x}]}|m.`$ (18)
The most efficient representation of the oscillator states for computational purposes is the position basis. The oscillator displacement is restricted to lie between the values set by the positions of the outer dots, a restriction which is readily enforced in the position representation. The set of position states is obtained by diagonalising the position operator in the number basis (a matrix of size $`N\times N`$), then those states amongst the resulting $`N`$ position states with eigenvalues outside the range $`(x_0,x_0)`$ are projected out, leading to a somewhat smaller sub-matrix. This simple-minded procedure is appropriate at relatively low energies when the weight of the wavefunction in the region outside the cut-offs is relatively small.

## Appendix B Density matrix equation of motion

In this appendix we detail how the dissipative terms in the density matrix equation of motion are obtained when the voltage difference between the leads is less than the spacing of energy levels within each of the dots, so that transport is restricted to the Coulomb blockade regime. We begin by deriving the rates which describe the transitions to and from the leads which are attached to the system, before going on to calculate the equation of motion for the density matrix following the prescription of Gurvitz *et al.*gurvitz

Following the usual theory of single electron tunnelingbean  we can write the net tunneling rate from a lead with chemical potential $`\mu `$ through a barrier to an isolated state with effective energy $`\epsilon `$ as

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{net}=V_0\left[P(0)f(\mathrm{\Delta })P(1)(1f(\mathrm{\Delta }))\right]$$
(19)
where $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\epsilon \mu `$, $`V_0`$ is the tunneling amplitude which is assumed to be independent of the energy, $`f`$ is the Fermi distribution function and $`P(0)`$($`P(1)`$) is the probability that the isolated state is unoccupied(occupied).

For the shuttle, we need to consider transitions between the lefthand lead and lefthand dot, and between the righthand lead and righthand dot. In addition, the strong Coulomb blockade means that transitions onto any of the dots can only occur if all of the dots are unoccupied. Therefore, for transitions between the lefthand lead and left-hand dot, $`P(0)=\rho _0`$ where we use the notation $`\rho _k=_i\rho _{kk}^{ii}`$, for the probability that the electronic state $`k`$ is occupied, with the superscripts and subscripts of the density matrix labelling the oscillator and electronic states respectively. Thus the net tunneling rate from the left-hand lead to the left-hand dot takes the form

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{net}^L=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L^+\rho _0\mathrm{\Gamma }_L^{}\rho _l$$
(20)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_L^+=V_0f(\mathrm{\Delta })`$, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_L^{}=V_0(1f(\mathrm{\Delta }))`$. Similarly, we find

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_{net}^R=\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^+\rho _r\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{}\rho _0.$$
(21)
These net rates can be separated into individual terms which enter into the equations of motion of the elements of the density matrix. We assume that $`\mathrm{\Delta }=\epsilon _l\mu _l=\mu _r\epsilon _r`$, where $`\mu _{l(r)}`$ is the Fermi level in the left(right) lead. The tunneling rates for the righthand lead take the form $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^{}=V_0f(\mathrm{\Delta })`$ and $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_R^+=V_0(1f(\mathrm{\Delta }))`$.

In order to simplify the analysis, we will work in the large bias limit where $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|k_\mathrm{B}T`$. In this limit, the backward tunneling rates $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{L(R)}^{}`$ go to zero and the forward rates take the simplified form $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{L(R)}^+=V_0`$. We shall restrict our analysis to this regime for simplicity, but the generalisation to the master equation for the case where $`|\mathrm{\Delta }|k_\mathrm{B}T`$ is relatively straightforward.

Gurvitz et al.,gurvitz  have developed a way of extending the density matrix description of electronic nanostructures to include couplings between localised, coherent, electronic states and leads containing a very large number of states where the electrons can be regarded as incoherent. According to this approach, the equation of motion for the density matrix including couplings to the leads (but not the environment of the oscillator) takes the general formsimplify  (setting $`\mathrm{}=1`$)

$`\dot{\rho }_{aa}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{aa}^{ij}\rho _{aa}^{ij}{\displaystyle \underset{da}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ad}+\rho _{cc}^{ij}{\displaystyle \underset{ca}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ca}`$ (22)
$`\dot{\rho }_{ab}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{ab}^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{\rho _{ab}^{ij}}{2}}\left({\displaystyle \underset{da}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{ad}+{\displaystyle \underset{db}{}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_{bd}\right)`$ (23)
where the superscripts on the density matrix label the vibrational state and the subscripts label the electronic parts. The terms $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{nm}`$ give the transition rates from states $`|n`$ to $`|m`$.

Following the prescription given in Eqn.s (22) and (23), and taking into account only tunneling onto the left-hand dot from the left-hand lead and tunneling off the righthand dot into the righthand lead, we obtain

$`\dot{\rho }_{ll}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{ll}^{ij}+\rho _0^{ij}\mathrm{\Gamma }_L`$ (24)
$`\dot{\rho }_{cc}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{cc}^{ij}`$ (25)
$`\dot{\rho }_{rr}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{rr}^{ij}\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\rho _{rr}^{ij}`$ (26)
$`\dot{\rho }_0^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{00}^{ij}\mathrm{\Gamma }_L\rho _0^{ij}+\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\rho _{rr}^{ij}`$ (27)
$`\dot{\rho }_{lc}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{lc}^{ij}`$ (28)
$`\dot{\rho }_{lr}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{lr}^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\rho _{lr}^{ij}`$ (29)
$`\dot{\rho }_{cr}^{ij}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho ]_{cr}^{ij}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\mathrm{\Gamma }_R\rho _{cr}^{ij},`$ (30)
where we have omitted the superscript ‘$`+`$’ from the tunneling rates and the terms off-diagonal in the electronic state $`|0`$ are zero, by definition, and so are omitted. Assuming the dot-lead junctions are identical, we can simplify the equations further by writing $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=\mathrm{\Gamma }_R=\mathrm{\Gamma }_L`$, and the terms coupling the dots to the leads are given by the matrix, $`\mathrm{\Xi }\rho `$, given in Eqn.s 38.


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# Gamma-ray bursts, supernova kicks, and gravitational radiation

## 1 Introduction

It is now widely believed that long ($``$5 s) gamma–ray bursts are produced by a class of supernovae, known as collapsars or hypernovae (Woosley 1993; MacFadyen & Woosley, 1999; Paczyński, 1998). The collapse of the core of a massive star is assumed to lead to the formation of a black hole, the remaining core material having enough angular momentum to form a massive accreting torus around it. The gravitational energy of the torus is radiated as neutrinos or converted to a beamed outflow by MHD processes. An evacuated channel forms along the rotation axis of the core, allowing the expulsion of matter with high Lorentz factors.

Direct evidence for the association of SNe and GRBs comes from the detection of bumps in the afterglow of several gamma–ray bursts (e.g. Price et al. 2002 and references therein) and the recent detection of SN ejecta in the X–ray afterglow of GRB 011211 by Reeves et al. (2002). However the hypernova class is extremely small: even allowing for the probable beaming of gamma–ray bursts (Frail et al. 2001), the fraction of HNe among SNe cannot be greater than about $`10^3`$. Evidently the production of a gamma–ray burst by a supernova is a very rare event. What causes this rarity is unclear.

The X–ray observation of a SN–GRB association by Reeves et al. (2002) throws up a further puzzle. Light travel arguments give a size $`10^{14}10^{15}`$ cm for the reprocessing region producing the X–ray spectrum, depending on the beaming. This is much larger than the radius of the progenitor star, and must be associated with the supernova outflow. Indeed the measured blueshift of the spectrum with respect to the known GRB redshift implies an outflow velocity $`0.1c`$. But these two measurements together require that the GRB occurred between 10 hr and 4 d after the supernova. This is clearly incompatible with the simplest version of how a hypernova proceeds.

In this paper we offer a solution to both problems. We reconsider the collapse of a rotating core and suggest by analogy with simulations of star formation that this may produce two or more compact objects. The subsequent coalescence of these objects can power a gamma–ray burst, accounting for the SN–GRB delay. The merger itself will generally give the black hole resulting from the collapse a significant velocity (‘kick’). This may be the explanation for the kicks observed in pulsars (Arzoumanian, Chernoff & Cordes, 2002). Following the suggestion of MacFadyen and Woosley (1999) that GRB production will be adversely affected by such kicks, we show that only a small fraction of core–collapse supernovae will produce gamma–ray bursts. These are likely to be a subset of those producing a massive black hole ($`>`$ 12 M).

## 2 Core collapse and fragmentation

It is well known that dynamical collapse of a self–gravitating gas cloud increases the importance of rotation. The ratio of kinetic to gravitational binding energy grows as $`1/r`$, where $`r`$ is the lengthscale of the collapsing object. Many authors (see Bonnell & Pringle, 1995 and references therein) have suggested that this probably leads to fragmentation, seen for example in the collapse of molecular clouds to form pre–main–sequence stars. Fragmentation requires that the collapsing core becomes bar–unstable, and that any bar lives a few dynamical times. In core collapse to nuclear densities the second requirement is very likely to be met (Bonnell & Pringle, 1995) while the first depends on the equation of state and the initial conditions. Thus determining the precise conditions under which fragmentation occurs requires large–scale numerical simulations, which are under way. For the remainder of this paper we consider the case where two compact objects form with masses and radii $`M_1,M_2`$ and $`R_1,R_2`$, with $`M_1>M_2`$. The minimum mass of these objects is set by the requirement that a nucleon fluid exists in their cores. In Fig 1 we plot $`R_2`$ as a function of $`M_2`$ for the equation of state (EOS) of Shen et al. (1998a,b). From Figure 1 we see that we require a mass $`0.2`$ M – at lower masses nuclei form even in the center of the stars and the object has a much larger radius. A similar low–mass limit is obtained for other equations of state.

## 3 Mergers and gamma–ray bursts

To have the potential of powering a gamma–ray burst, the merger of the two orbiting lumps must produce a central object surrounded by a torus. This will happen if at least one of the lumps is a neutron star rather than a black hole, and mass transfer eventually becomes dynamically unstable. For a corotating object less massive than the accretor and filling its Roche lobe, of radius (Paczyński 1971)

$$R_\mathrm{L}=0.462\left(\frac{M_2}{M_1+M_2}\right)^{1/3}a$$
(1)
(where $`a`$ is the separation) this requires that $`R_\mathrm{L}`$ moves inwards with respect to its radius $`R_2`$. The standard result (e.g. van Teeseling & King, 1998) is

$$\frac{\dot{R}_\mathrm{L}}{R_\mathrm{L}}\frac{\dot{R}_2}{R_2}=\frac{2\dot{M}_2}{M_2}\left(\frac{5}{6}+\frac{\zeta }{2}\frac{M_2}{M_1}\right)+2\frac{\dot{J}}{J},$$
(2)
where the mass–radius relation is taken as $`R_2M_2^\zeta `$, and $`\dot{J}`$ includes all forms of orbital angular momentum loss. This expression shows that dynamical instability must occur if $`\zeta <5/3`$, since $`\dot{M}_2,\dot{J}<0`$. The mass–radius relation Fig. 1 now shows that the instability is inevitable for any lobe–filling object, since it will occur at the latest once its mass is reduced to $`M_20.2`$M and the lump begins to expand rapidly on mass loss. The tidal lobe of a non–corotating object is similar in size, so again instability will occur for $`M_20.2`$M. Instability may well happen before this point for other reasons: for example, the orbit may be so close that the accreting matter cannot form a disc around the accretor, adding a dynamical–timescale term to $`\dot{J}`$. For sufficiently stiff equations of state Newtonian tidal effects can also lead to an instability on a dynamical time scale (Lai, Rasio and Shapiro 1993).

The only way that dynamical instability can be avoided is if (a) both lumps are already black holes, or (b) the accretor is a black hole, and the accreting object spirals within its horizon before filling its Roche (or more generally tidal) lobe. This occurs if $`R_2<R_\mathrm{L}`$ for $`a=\eta GM_1/c^2`$. With $`R_2=10^6R_6`$ cm, we find the condition

$$\frac{M_1^3M_2}{M_1+M_2}>\left(\frac{7.2R_6}{\eta }\right)^3.$$
(3)
Only the most massive black holes can swallow neutron stars whole. This is true for a wide range of neutron–star radii, including $`R_6=1`$. Most mergers result in dynamical instability of the neutron lump. Thus fragmentation and subsequent coalescence release enough energy to power a gamma–ray burst.

## 4 Mergers and kicks

Simulations of unequal–mass neutron star mergers show that the mass loss from the system is asymmetric. The escaping material originates from the lower–mass star and is ejected on a timescale shorter than the orbital period. This provides a thrust to the merged object, which is found to have a velocity $`V_{\mathrm{kick}}800`$ km s-1 for the case $`M_1=0.8`$ M and $`M_2=0.7`$ M (Rosswog & Davies, in prep; but see also Rosswog et al, 2000).

In general we can assume that the ejected material, $`M_{\mathrm{lost}}`$ is ejected at a speed $`V_{2,\mathrm{orb}}`$ (where $`V_{2,\mathrm{orb}}`$ is the orbital velocity of the primary, $`M_2`$) when the donor finally gets shredded. Combining expressions for $`V_{2,\mathrm{orb}}`$ and the orbital separation $`a`$ (assuming the donor fills its Roche lobe), and applying conservation of momentum, we obtain the following expression for the kick given to the merged object:

$`V_{\mathrm{kick}}`$ $``$ $`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{GM_1^2}{(M_1+M_2)R_2}}\left({\displaystyle \frac{M_2}{M_1+M_2}}\right)^{1/3}\right]^{1/2}`$ (4)
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{M_{\mathrm{lost}}}{M_1+M_2M_{\mathrm{lost}}}}`$
For systems where $`M_2`$ has been reduced to the mininum mass of $``$ 0.2 M, with $`M_1M_2`$, we see that $`V_{\mathrm{kick}}M^{2/3}`$ where $`M=M_1+M_2`$. We use the result of Rosswog & Davies (as stated above), for $`M=1.5`$ M, to write

$$V_{\mathrm{kick}}=800\left(\frac{1.5M_{}}{M}\right)^{2/3}\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1$$
(5)
The kick may be slightly lower if the final shredding occurs before $`M_2`$ reaches 0.2 M. It should also be noted that the speed of the compact object at infinity will be reduced as it is decelerated by the gravitational force of the ejected material. Likely values of the speed of the merged object at infinity lie in the range 100 – 300 km s-1, although the merged object and the ejecta may be bound in some cases.

A remarkably similar kick occurs if both merging objects are black holes, because of the effect of gravitational radiation reaction on the final plunge orbit (Bekenstein, 1973; Fitchett, 1983; Fitchett & Detweiler, 1984). For rapidly spinning holes, as are likely in core collapse, the kick velocity may approach 1500 km s-1 (Fitchett, 1983). The basic reason for the similarity is that in both cases the recoil velocity is of order the primary’s centre–of–mass–velocity immediately before the plunge phase.

## 5 Supernova kicks and GRBs

The torus surrounding the compact object releases its energy into the region along its rotation axis. As pointed out by MacFadyen & Woosley (1999), the production of a GRB will be inhibited if the volume into which the $`\nu \overline{\nu }`$ or MHD energy is deposited is increased significantly by the motion of the central object and torus with respect to the surrounding gas. This motion may be the recoil described in the previous section, or it may be a kick derived from some other physical mechanism (see e.g. Lai 2001).

A potential GRB will be extinguished if $`V_{\mathrm{kick}}>d/\tau _{\mathrm{er}}`$, where $`d`$ is the lengthscale for energy deposition into a potential fireball, and $`\tau _{\mathrm{er}}`$ is timescale for the energy to be released from the torus which is set by the viscous timescale of the torus. Assuming $`\tau _{\mathrm{er}}`$ 1 s and taking $`d=15(M_1/M_{})`$ km (see figures in Fishbone & Moncrief, 1976), a GRB will fail if:

$$V_{\mathrm{kick}}15\left(\frac{M_1}{M_{}}\right)\mathrm{km}\mathrm{s}^1$$
(6)
The expression above is plotted in Fig 2 along with the likely kick received by the central object and torus (as given in equation 5; note here that for the interesting range of values of $`M`$, $`M_2M_1`$, hence $`M_1M`$). This figure suggests that the recoil velocity is likely to extinguish any potential GRB when the total mass $`M<12`$ M. In other words GRBs will be extinguished when $`V_{\mathrm{kick}}`$ exceeds some particular value, $`200`$ km s-1. The exact limiting mass for a gamma–ray burst is uncertain, but the important point here is that gamma–ray bursts will only occur above some limiting mass.

## 6 The SN–GRB delay and gravitational wave emission

In the picture presented here, core collapse only produces a gamma–ray burst in a few cases. Even in these cases, the burst may not follow the collapse immediately, but may be delayed while gravitational radiation brings the orbiting fragments into contact. For an initial circular orbit of separation $`a_0`$, it is easy to show that this requires a time

$$\tau _{\mathrm{gr}}=0.18\times \frac{(a_0/1000\mathrm{km})^4}{m_1m_2(m_1+m_2)}\mathrm{hours}.$$
(7)
where $`m_1=M_1/`$ M etc. We see that a delay of hours is quite possible. Since $`\tau _{\mathrm{gr}}a_0^4`$, only a small increase in the value of $`a_0`$ (say to 3000 km), will produce a large (factor $``$ 100) increase in the delay between formation of the two lumps and their coming into contact. Thus SN–GRB delays of the order inferred by Reeves et al in GRB 011211 are quite reasonable in this picture.

An obvious corollary of this is that our picture predicts that core–collapse supernovae should be strong sources of gravitational radiation (cf Bonnell & Pringle, 1995; van Putten, 2001; Fryer, Holz & Hughes, 2002). A neutron star merger should be detectable by LIGO out to 20 Mpc, and by LIGO II out to 300 Mpc. The gravitational wave signal strength for two point masses in circular orbits with a separation $`a`$ is given by $`h\mathrm{\Omega }^2\mu a^2`$ where $`\mathrm{\Omega }^2=G(M_1+M_2)/a^3`$ and $`\mu =M_1M_2/(M_1+M_2)`$. Hence the detectability of a merger of two compact objects is a sensitive function of their masses. As an example, we consider here the merger of two half neutron stars (ie $`M_1=M_2=0.7`$ M.) will be detectable to a distance of 6 Mpc with LIGO and 100 Mpc with LIGO II. We can derive a predicted event rate from an assumed event rate per galaxy (see Phinney 1991). Assuming a formation rate of 10-2 yr-1 per galaxy, LIGO II should see $``$ 400 mergers per year. This is much larger than the number of neutron–star merger events per year LIGO II should detect ($`10`$).

## 7 Conclusions

We have suggested by analogy with large–scale simulations of star formation (see e.g. Bate, Bonnell & Bromm, 2002, in prep, and http://www.ukaff.ac.uk/starcluster/) that core collapse of a massive rotating star may lead to fragmentation of nuclear–density lumps. The subsequent coalescence of these lumps under gravitational radiation gives the resulting black hole or neutron star a significant kick velocity, compatible with those observed in pulsars (see for example Arzoumanian, Chernoff, & Cordes, 2002). A gamma–ray burst can result only when this kick is small. Thus only a small fraction of core–collapse supernovae produce gamma–ray bursts. The most likely candidates are those containing massive black holes ($`M_1>12`$ M) which have not formed via the merger of two lower–mass black holes. The burst may be delayed significantly (hours – days) after the supernova, as suggested by recent observations.

The complexity seen in star formation studies suggests that a large variety of behaviours is likely in core collapse. A gamma–ray burst appears to require a rather high degree of symmetry and alignment, and is therefore a rather unusual outcome. We note that in the case of a kick driven by mass expulsion in a double neutron–star merger, the expelled gas may have up to 10 times the energy of the kinetic energy of the merger product. Given likely initial neutron star kick velocities of $`1000`$ km s-1, these energies may approach $`10^{50}`$ erg, and thus have noticeable effects on the early development of the supernova outburst.

A clear test of our picture will be given by gravitational wave experiments. An observed chirp signal where the total mass $`1.4`$ M would be easily explained in our model but practically impossible to explain via standard neutron–star mergers (as predicted from the observed binary pulars \[Phinney, 1991\]).

MBD gratefully acknowledges the support of a URF from the Royal Society. Theoretical astrophysics at Leicester is supported by a PPARC rolling grant.


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# Non-Abelian linear Boltzmann equation and quantum correction to Kramers and Smoluchowski equation

## I Non-Abelian linear Boltzmann equation

Let us start writing the linear Boltzmann equation for the classical case, still relying on the quantum expression for the collision cross-section, in a way which is actually not the most common one. According to a famous paper by van Hove , the energy-dependent differential cross-section per target particle describing scattering of a microscopic probe off a macroscopic sample is given by

$$\frac{d^2\sigma }{d\mathrm{\Omega }_p^{}dE_p^{}}=\frac{p^{}}{p}\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)S(𝒒,E)$$
(1)
if the momentum of the microscopic probe changes from $`𝒑`$ to $`𝒑^{}=𝒑+𝒒`$. $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)`$ is here the collision cross-section for the single scattering event, given by $`\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)=M^2(2\pi \mathrm{})^3\frac{2\pi }{\mathrm{}}|\stackrel{~}{t}(q)|^2`$, with $`\stackrel{~}{t}(q)`$ Fourier transform of the T-matrix describing the one-pair collisions between the test particle and the particles constituting the sample, supposed to depend only on the modulus of the momentum transfer $`𝒒`$. $`S(𝒒,E)`$ is a two-point correlation function known as dynamic structure factor , reflecting the equilibrium many-body properties of the fluid, depending on momentum $`𝒒`$ and energy $`E=E(𝒒,𝒑)=\frac{q^2}{2M}+\frac{𝒑𝒒}{M}`$ transferred to the test particle of mass $`M`$, whose general expression is given by the Fourier transform with respect to energy and momentum transfer of the time dependent spatial autocorrelation function according to:

$`S(𝒒,E)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2\pi \mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle 𝑑td^3𝒙e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}(Et𝒒𝒙)}}`$
$`\times {\displaystyle \frac{1}{N}}{\displaystyle d^3𝒚N(𝒚)N(𝒙+𝒚,t)}.`$
Exploiting (1) the linear Boltzmann equation in the absence of external potentials may be written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}f(𝒙,𝒑,t)={\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xf(𝒙,𝒑,t)+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{M^2}}{\displaystyle d^3𝒒\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)}`$ (2)
$`\times \left[S(𝒒,𝒑𝒒)f(𝒙,𝒑𝒒,t)S(𝒒,𝒑)f(𝒙,𝒑,t)\right]`$ (3)
with $`S(𝒒,𝒑)S(𝒒,E)`$ the dynamic structure factor of the homogeneous macroscopic fluid of density $`n`$ the particle is interacting with. So far the classical case, all expressions appearing in (2) being c-number functions.

Recent work on the study of subdynamics in non-relativistic quantum field theory  has led to a scattering theory derivation of a particular structure of master-equation , which goes beyond the usual limitation of linear coupling and is a natural candidate to be considered as a fully quantum linear Boltzmann equation, as we will show in the sequel. Instead of an equation for the classical distribution function it is an equation for the full statistical operator $`\widehat{\rho }`$ associated to the test particle, describing not only its momentum distribution, but also its coherence properties. These are particularly relevant for the time evolution of the off-diagonal matrix elements, related to the phenomenon of decoherence, and for the low temperature behavior, where the classical particle viewpoint is insufficient and wave effects are to be taken into account. The quantum kinetic equation is given by:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\widehat{\rho }}{dt}}={\displaystyle \frac{i}{\mathrm{}}}[\widehat{𝖧}_0,\widehat{\rho }]+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{M^2}}{\displaystyle d^3𝒒\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)}`$ (4)
$`\times \left[e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}𝒒\widehat{𝗑}}\sqrt{S(𝒒,\widehat{𝗉})}\widehat{\rho }\sqrt{S(𝒒,\widehat{𝗉})}e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}𝒒\widehat{𝗑}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\{S(𝒒,\widehat{𝗉}),\widehat{\rho }\}\right],`$ (5)
with $`\widehat{𝗑}`$ and $`\widehat{𝗉}`$ position and momentum operator for the test particle, $`\widehat{𝖧}_0=\widehat{𝗉}^2/2M`$, $`S(𝒒,\widehat{𝗉})`$ the operator-valued dynamic structure factor, which is a positive operator due to (1). Equation (4) addresses the same physics as the linear Boltzmann equation but is non-Abelian due to the appearance in it of operators instead of c-number functions and it provides a physical realization of the general mathematical structure of translation-covariant quantum dynamical semigroup , other known physical examples restricting to the diffusive case. Neglecting the dependence on the momentum operator $`\widehat{𝗉}`$ and therefore on the energy transfer of the dynamic structure factor in (4), so that its appearance only corrects the integration measure, one recovers a structure of master-equation typically proposed on a more phenomenological basis for the study of the phenomenon of decoherence, which has gone through many refinements , all missing the correct description of momentum and energy transfer, which may not be critical for the description of short-time decoherence but are crucial for the approach to the correct stationary state. In fact while the models in  predict a steady growth of kinetic energy and do not admit a stationary state, provided the fluid is in a $`\beta `$-KMS state or equivalently the dynamic structure factor satisfies the detailed balance condition, eq. (4) admits a stationary solution of the form $`\mathrm{exp}(\beta \widehat{𝗉}^2/2M)`$, with $`M`$ mass of the test particle and $`\beta `$ inverse temperature of the fluid . In order to clarify analogies and differences between (2) and (4) we will now consider a dynamics in which als the off-diagonal elements of the statistical operator are of relevance, corresponding to position diffusion, focusing on a system in which the dynamic structure factor can be explicitly calculated, a free gas of particles of mass $`m`$ satisfying Maxwell-Boltzmann statistics (for the extension to quantum statistics see ), the expression of the correlation function being in this case incidentally the same for both classical and quantum realm

$$S_{\mathrm{MB}}(𝒒,𝒑)=\sqrt{\frac{\beta m}{2\pi }}\frac{1}{q}e^{\frac{\beta }{8m}\frac{(2mE(𝒒,𝒑)+q^2)^2}{q^2}}.$$
(6)
## II Quantum correction to Kramers equation

As a first step we recover from (2) the classical Kramers equation for the Brownian motion of a massive test particle in a gas of much lighter ones. Calling $`\alpha =m/M`$ the ratio between the masses and considering the Brownian limit of small $`\alpha `$, corresponding to small energy transfer, the correct limiting expression of (6), still satisfying the detailed balance condition is

$$S_{\mathrm{MB}}^{\mathrm{}}(𝒒,𝒑)=\sqrt{\frac{\beta m}{2\pi }}\frac{1}{q}e^{\frac{\beta }{8m}q^2}e^{\frac{\beta }{2}E(𝒒,𝒑)}.$$
(7)
Starting from the linear Boltzmann equation written in terms of the dynamic structure factor as in (2) and exploiting (7) one obtains in a most straightforward way Kramers equation, a point usually neglected in textbooks . Substituting (7) in (2) one in fact has

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}f(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xf(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ (8)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{M^2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\beta m}{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle d^3𝒒\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)}{q}e^{\frac{\beta }{8m}(1+2\alpha )q^2}\left[e^{𝒒_p}1\right]e^{\frac{\beta }{2M}𝒒𝒑}f(𝒙,𝒑,t)}`$ (9)
and considering the limit of small momentum transfer $`𝒒`$, expanding the exponentials and keeping terms up to second order one immediately has for an isotropic medium ($`𝒒_i^2=\frac{1}{3}q^2`$)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}f(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xf(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ (10)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{n\beta }{6M^3}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\beta m}{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle d^3𝒒q\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)e^{\frac{\beta }{8m}(1+2\alpha )q^2}\underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}\frac{}{p_i}\left[\left(p_i+\frac{M}{\beta }\frac{}{p_i}\right)f(𝒙,𝒑,t)\right]}`$ (11)
and therefore Kramers equation for the description of Brownian motion

$$\frac{}{t}f(𝒙,𝒑,t)=\frac{𝒑}{M}_xf(𝒙,𝒑,t)+\eta \left[_p(𝒑f(𝒙,𝒑,t))+\frac{M}{\beta }𝚫_pf(𝒙,𝒑,t)\right],$$
(12)
with a friction coefficient explicitly given by

$$\eta =\frac{1}{6}\frac{n}{M^3}\beta \sqrt{\frac{\beta m}{2\pi }}d^3𝒒q\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)e^{\frac{\beta }{8m}(1+2\alpha )q^2}.$$

We now want to obtain the corresponding result from the non-Abelian linear Boltzmann equation (4). To do this it is particularly convenient to use the Wigner function, which even if it is not a well-defined probability density, well serves the purpose of comparing quantum versus classical equations. Introducing the Wigner function corresponding to the statistical operator $`\widehat{\rho }`$ by

$$f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t)=\frac{d^3𝒌}{(2\pi \mathrm{})^3}e^{\frac{i}{\mathrm{}}𝒙𝒌}𝒑+𝒌/2|\widehat{\rho }|𝒑𝒌/2,$$

eq. (4) may be easily rewritten for a Brownian particle in a Maxwell-Boltzmann gas, exploiting (7), as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ (13)
$`+{\displaystyle \frac{n}{M^2}}\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{\beta m}{2\pi }}}{\displaystyle d^3𝒒\frac{\mathrm{\Sigma }(q)}{q}e^{\frac{\beta }{8m}(1+2\alpha )q^2}}`$ (14)
$`\times \left[e^{𝒒_p}\mathrm{cos}\left({\displaystyle \frac{\beta \mathrm{}}{4M}}𝒒_x\right)\right]e^{\frac{\beta }{2M}𝒒𝒑}f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t).`$ (15)
The comparison between (8) and (13) is straightforward: the cosine term in (13), arising from the non-Abelian structure of (4), is replaced by a factor one in the classical case, and this result can be simply obtained taking the semiclassical limit $`\mathrm{}0`$ in (13), the argument of the cosine depending linearly on $`\mathrm{}`$. The quantum correction to Kramers equation then comes from this contribution and amounts to a term corresponding to diffusion in position, as can immediately be seen considering the small momentum transfer limit of (13)

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t)`$ (16)
$`+\eta \left[_p(𝒑f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t))+{\displaystyle \frac{M}{\beta }}𝚫_pf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t)+{\displaystyle \frac{\beta }{M}}{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{}^2}{16}}𝚫_xf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t)\right],`$ (17)
with $`\eta `$ as in (12). Thus position and momentum diffusion do appear together in the quantum description of Brownian motion, even though with different weights, as appears from the different $`\beta `$ dependence of the two contributions, the additional diffusion term vanishing in the limit $`\mathrm{}0`$. This can be seen more clearly introducing the thermal momentum spread $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_{\mathrm{th}}^2=\frac{M}{\beta }`$ and the thermal position spread or square thermal wavelength $`\mathrm{\Delta }x_{\mathrm{th}}^2=\frac{\beta \mathrm{}^2}{4M}`$, satisfying the minimum uncertainty relation $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_{\mathrm{th}}\mathrm{\Delta }x_{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}`$, so that one has

$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}+\eta [_p(𝒑f_\rho ^\mathrm{W})`$ (19)
$`+\mathrm{\Delta }p_{\mathrm{th}}^2𝚫_pf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{\Delta }x_{\mathrm{th}}^2𝚫_xf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}].`$
The Fokker-Planck equation (16) or (19) can be recast in operator form, leading to the well-known structure

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\widehat{\rho }}{dt}}=`$ $``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\mathrm{}}}[\widehat{𝖧}_0,\widehat{\rho }]{\displaystyle \frac{i}{\mathrm{}}}{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}[\widehat{𝗑}_i,\{\widehat{𝗉}_i,\widehat{\rho }\}]`$ (20)
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\mathrm{}^2}}\mathrm{\Delta }p_{\mathrm{th}}^2{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}[\widehat{𝗑}_i,[\widehat{𝗑}_i,\widehat{\rho }]]{\displaystyle \frac{\eta }{\mathrm{}^2}}{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}\mathrm{\Delta }x_{\mathrm{th}}^2{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{3}{}}}[\widehat{𝗉}_i,[\widehat{𝗉}_i,\widehat{\rho }]],`$ (21)
which could have been obtained directly from (4) as in , without going through the use of the Wigner function, missing however in this way the particularly manifest appearance of the quantum correction which provides a inhomogeneous contribution to the collision term in the linear Boltzmann equation through the appearance of the cosine in (13). The appearance of both position and momentum diffusion in (19) or equivalently (20) is due to the fact that (4) is an evolution equation not only for the diagonal elements of the statistical operator giving the momentum distribution of the test particle, but also for its quantum coherence properties, which actually require preservation of the positivity of the statistical operator. In fact the quantum correction in (19), actually corresponding to the double commutator with the momentum operator in (20), is necessary for (20) to have a Lindblad structure ensuring complete positivity (actually corresponding with positivity for Fokker-Planck equations of the form (20). Correctness and relevance of this term are heavily debated , also in connection with the meaning of complete positivity , and its appearance as a typical quantum correction coming from the Brownian and small momentum transfer limit of the non-Abelian linear Boltzmann equation (4) expressed in terms of the operator-valued dynamic structure factor sheds light on its physical origin. The quantum Fokker-Planck equation (20) due to the minimum uncertainty relation $`\mathrm{\Delta }p_{\mathrm{th}}\mathrm{\Delta }x_{\mathrm{th}}=\frac{\mathrm{}}{2}`$ has furthermore the distinguishing feature of being expressible in terms of a single generator for Cartesian direction , a property actually required for the diffusive component of the generator of a translation-covariant semigroup : both (4) and (20) are proper generators of completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups, admitting the correct equipartition stationary solution and being invariant under translations. The three features of complete positivity, equipartition and covariance are in fact not contradictory provided one considers covariance under the symmetry relevant to the physical problem, which is not necessarily translation invariance , otherwise, independently on positivity or complete positivity of the time evolution, covariance would lead to high non-uniqueness of the stationary solution . Equations (4) and (20) are essentially the two possible structures of generators of translation-covariant semigroups, the results exposed in  giving the quantum counterpart of the well-known classical result according to which the only meaningful approximation of the integro-differential linear Boltzmann equation as a differential equation is a second order Fokker-Planck equation .

Now that the quantum correction to Kramers equation has been given, which unlike previous results is not dependent on the presence of external potentials , but only relates to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle , we move on to investigate whether this correction also has consequences on the Smoluchowski equation for the description of Brownian motion in the limit of high temperature and friction, when momentum is expected to quickly relax to its equilibrium value and one is only interested in the time evolution of the slowly varying marginal position distribution

$$\sigma _\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,t)=d^3𝒑f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,𝒑,t).$$

## III Quantum correction to Smoluchowski equation

We therefore start from (16), essentially following the derivation of the Smoluchowski equation from the Kramers equation in the high friction limit given by van Kampen , though more refined derivations have been given , differing however only for higher order contributions. Setting

$$\eta \frac{\beta }{M}\frac{\mathrm{}^2}{16}=\frac{\eta }{4}\mathrm{\Delta }x_{\mathrm{th}}^2D_{xx}$$
(22)
and having in mind a high temperature, strong friction situation in which the quantum position diffusion term can be considered as a perturbation, we write (16) as

$`_p(𝒑f_\rho ^\mathrm{W})+{\displaystyle \frac{M}{\beta }}𝚫_pf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}=`$ (23)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\eta }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}D_{xx}𝚫_xf_\rho ^\mathrm{W}\right].`$ (24)
Introducing the differential operators

$`K^{(0)}\left[g\right]`$ $`=`$ $`_p(𝒑g)+{\displaystyle \frac{M}{\beta }}𝚫_pg`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\eta }}L^{(1)}\left[g\right]`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\eta }}\left[{\displaystyle \frac{}{t}}g+{\displaystyle \frac{𝒑}{M}}_xgD_{xx}𝚫_xg\right]`$
and expressing $`f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}`$ as an expansion in powers of $`1/\eta `$

$$f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}=f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}{}_{}{}^{(0)}+\frac{1}{\eta }f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}{}_{}{}^{(1)}+\mathrm{},$$
(25)
eq. (23) may be rewritten as $`K^{(0)}\left[f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}\right]=\frac{1}{\eta }L^{(1)}\left[f_\rho ^\mathrm{W}\right]`$ and solved by iteration using (25) and equating on both sides contributions of the same order in $`\eta `$. The only difference with respect to the classical situation considered in  lies in the structure of the $`L^{(1)}`$ operator, where also the Laplacian with respect to position appears. Going through the very same procedure, integrating over the fast degree of freedom given by the momentum dependence of the Wigner distribution function, and neglecting terms higher than first order in $`\frac{1}{\eta }`$ one obtains again for the marginal position distribution $`\sigma _\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,t)`$ the Smoluchowski equation

$$\frac{}{t}\sigma _\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,t)=\left(\frac{1}{\eta M\beta }+D_{xx}\right)𝚫_x\sigma _\rho ^\mathrm{W}(𝒙,t),$$
(26)
with a diffusion coefficient which is however not simply Einstein’s, but has a quantum correction, vanishing in the semiclassical limit $`\mathrm{}0`$, just given by the coefficient (22) responsible for position diffusion in the quantum Kramers equation (16). The new overall coefficient can be written as $`1/(\eta M\beta )(1+(\eta \beta \mathrm{})^2/16)`$, so that the correction is actually given by the square ratio between two characteristic times, $`\beta \mathrm{}`$ for the bath and $`1/\eta `$ for the test particle, which should be much less than one according to the Markov approximation.

We have thus proposed a fully quantum, non-Abelian linear Boltzmann equation given by (4) and expressed in terms of the T-matrix describing collisions and the operator-valued dynamic structure factor of the environment, thus going beyond the usual restriction of linear dissipation. Considering a massive test particle interacting with a gas of much lighter ones the linear Boltzmann equation written in terms of the dynamic structure factor leads in a most straightforward way to the Kramers equation for the description of Brownian motion in both classical and quantum case. One simply has to consider the clear-cut physical limit in which momentum transfer and energy transfer (or equivalently ratio between the masses) are small, thus obtaining in the classical case Kramers equation and in the quantum case (16) with a peculiar, heavily debated quantum correction linked to position diffusion, whose appearance is to be traced back to the $`\mathrm{}`$ dependent, inhomogeneous cosine correction in (13) vanishing in the semiclassical limit. Further studying the case of high temperature and friction the quantum Smoluchowski equation (26) is obtained, in which Einstein’s diffusion coefficient is slightly modified due to the presence of the quantum position diffusion coefficient (22), which depends linearly on the inverse temperature and vanishes if $`\mathrm{}0`$. The non-Abelian linear Boltzmann equation (4) due to its intrinsic quantum structure should prove as a sound starting point for the study of quantum kinetic, in which not only the momentum distribution but also coherence properties are of relevance; it furthermore has the advantage of being expressed in terms of quantities of direct physical meaning, such as the dynamic structure factor and the collision cross-section, for which suitable phenomenological Ansatz or experimentally determined expressions can be inserted.

## ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author thanks Prof. L. Lanz for useful discussions and Prof. A. Barchielli for suggestions. He also thanks Dr. F. Belgiorno. This work was supported by MIUR under Cofinanziamento and Progetto Giovani.