Energy Exchange In The Lossy Spin-Boson Model

Excess heat in the Fleischmann–Pons experiment is observed without commensurate energetic particles, which is inconsistent with known nuclear reactions. Any proposed model must address this at the outset. At present, we recognize are two general approaches to the problem: mechanisms which transfer the reaction energy directly to a condensed matter mode, which requires the fractionation of a large quantum into many small quanta; mechanisms in which the large energy quantum is converted to kinetic energy over a very large number of neighboring nuclei. We have focused on the first approach, and we have found a model that seems to accomplish this. Here we introduce the model, which we call the “lossy spin-boson model”. We find that energy exchange in the lossless spin-boson model is hindered due to destructive interference effects. Augmenting the model with loss removes the destructive interference, and we use perturbation theory on a specific example for illustration. Feshbach projection operators and the Brillouin–Wigner formalism which we adopt to describe loss in the model are reviewed in Appendix A.