Quantum friction

R. Tsekov

Published 2012-03-12, updated 2015-06-06Version 5

The Brownian motion of a light quantum particle in a heavy classical gas is theoretically described and a new expression for the friction coefficient is obtained for arbitrary temperature. At zero temperature it equals to the de Broglie momentum of the mean free path divided by the mean free path. Alternatively, the corresponding mobility of the quantum particle in the classical gas is equal to the square of the mean free path divided by the Planck constant. The Brownian motion of a quantum particle in a quantum environment is also discussed.