Dissipation-induced enhancement of quantum fluctuations

Abstract

We study a quantum harmonic oscillator linearly coupled through the position operator q̂ to a first bath and through the momentum operator p̂ to a second bath yielding an Ohmic-Drude dissipation. We analyse the oscillator's fluctuations as a function of the ratio between the strength of the two couplings, focusing in particular on the situation in which the two dissipative interactions are comparable. Analytic formulas are derived in the relevant regimes corresponding to the low temperature limit and when the Drude high frequency cutoff is much larger than all other frequencies. At low temperature, each bath operates to suppress the oscillator's ground state quantum fluctuations