{
  "annotation_id": "728792be-8f85-4aa5-a53a-7240358073a1",
  "date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:56.464000Z",
  "date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:56.464000Z",
  "file_hash": "8b7df107f52a2b4552bba37f0487cdb5adf8d2bab786148f3b28341d9358357d",
  "private": false,
  "record": {
    "abstract": "We examine the possibility that a metastable quantum state could experiment a\nphenomenon similar to thermal activation but at zero temperature. In order to\ndo that we study the real-time dynamics of the reduced Wigner function in a\nsimple open quantum system: an anharmonic oscillator with a cubic potential\nlinearly interacting with an environment of harmonic oscillators. Our results\nsuggest that this activation-like phenomenon exists indeed as a consequence of\nthe fluctuations induced by the environment and that its associated decay rate\nis comparable to the tunneling rate as computed by the instanton method, at\nleast for the particular potential of the system and the distribution of\nfrequencies for the environment considered in this paper. However, we are not\nable to properly deal with the term which leads to tunneling in closed quantum\nsystems, and a definite conclusion cannot be reached until tunneling and\nactivation-like effects are considered simultaneously.",
    "arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0303075",
    "authors": [
      "Daniel Arteaga",
      "Esteban Calzetta",
      "Albert Roura",
      "Enric Verdaguer"
    ],
    "categories": [
      "quant-ph",
      "cond-mat.stat-mech"
    ],
    "doi": "10.1023/A:1025758616106",
    "journal_ref": "Int. J. Theor. Phys. 42, 1257-1280 (2003)",
    "title": "Activation-like processes at zero temperature",
    "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0303075"
  },
  "schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
  "source": {
    "execution_id": "b0b77129-2648-4aa8-9725-ce19003e4f37",
    "id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
    "type": "Model",
    "variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
    "version": "0.1.0"
  },
  "user_id": 1000002
}