Simple Quantum Dynamics with Thermalization

In this paper, we introduce two simple quantum dynamics methods. One is based on the popular surface-hopping method, and the other is based on rescaling of the propagation on the bath ground-state potential surface. The first method is special, as it avoids specific feedback from the simulated quantum system to the bath and can be applied for precalculated classical trajectories. It is based on the equipartition theorem to determine if hops between different potential energy surfaces are allowed. By comparing with the formally exact Hierarchical Equations Of Motion approach for four model systems we find that the method generally approximates the quantum dynamics toward thermal equilibrium very well. The second method is based on rescaling of the nonadiabatic coupling and also neglect the effect of the state of the quantum system on the bath. By the nature of the approximations, they cannot reproduce the effect of bath relaxation following excitation. However, the methods are both computationally more tractable than the conventional fewest switches surface hopping, and we foresee that the methods will be powerful for simulations of quantum dynamics in systems with complex bath dynamics, where the system–bath coupling is not too strong compared to the thermal energy.