Abstract
The relaxation of harmonic oscillators in a gas has been studied. Hard collisions between the oscillator and external gas particles are treated simultaneously with dissipative effects which result from many weak collisions, and the time-dependent osciliator occupation numbers are thereby obtained. The dissipative effects are treated by perturbation theory, whereas the description of a hard collision goes beyond the range of perturbation theory, although the motion of the gas particle during the collision is treated classically. In order to include these effects simultaneously, a quantum-mechanical analog of the Fokker—Planck equation is used. The relationship of the two interaction mechanisms is discussed for the case of a Coulomb interaction between the oscillator and the gas particle. A method for extending the technique, to a system more complicated than an oscillator, is proposed.
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