Bounds on Attainable Rate Modulation in Fermi's Golden Rule

Abstract:Controlling transition rates is a central objective across quantum optics, condensed-matter physics, and chemical physics, encompassing processes such as spontaneous emission, energy and charge transfer, spin relaxation, and chemical reactions. Although Fermi's golden rule provides a powerful framework for calculating such rates of weakly coupled transitions, conventional calculations require the interaction to be specified in advance; the range of rate responses attainable over a broader interaction space remains unknown. We formulate spectral-overlap golden-rule rates as quadratic forms of the interaction and derive rigorous bounds on rate modulation over a specified interaction space. As an example, application to energy transfer from a donor to a molecular vibration coupled to an optical cavity reveals that enhancement and suppression depend jointly on the interaction and cavity detuning, including continuous reversal of the rate response for a fixed interaction. The same approach may elucidate rate control for other golden-rule processes, including excitation-energy transfer, nonadiabatic electron transfer, nonradiative electronic transitions, vibrational and spin relaxation, and spontaneous emission.

Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)

arXiv:2610.29404 [quant-ph]

(or arXiv:2610.29404v1 [quant-ph] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.29404 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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