Dissipative Mechanics Using Complex-Valued Hamiltonians

Abstract

We show that a large class of dissipative systems can be brought to a canonical form by introducing complex co-ordinates in phase space and a complex-valued hamiltonian. A naive canonical quantization of these systems lead to non-hermitean hamiltonian operators. The excited states are unstable and decay to the ground state . We also compute the tunneling amplitude across a potential barrier.