Abstract
A long standing unsolved puzzle is the very small rate of surface diffusion of ad-sorbates in the low temperature STM in the regime of quantum diffusion, differing by orders of magnitude from the results of modern quantum theories of surface diffusion (QTSD) based on ab initio potential energy surfaces (refs. [1]-[5]). We investigate whether decoherence mechanisms, neglected in QTSD, can shed some light on these discrepancies. A quantum-mechanical theory is presented treating the entanglement of adsorbates with their environment (phonons, electron-hole pairs, gravitons) [6]. Time dependent wave packet evolution including the environmental modes indicates possible paths towards an explanation of the observed discrepancies and gives an insight into phenomenological descriptions like adsorbate localization, quantum Zeno effect (permenant "measurement" by specific environmental excitations) and wave function collapse.
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