Effective damping of proton transfer in the H-bond caused by asymmetry of the reservoir

Abstract

When studying some relaxation phenomena, the thermal reservoir is usually taken as a system of harmonic oscillators. In the model used here this type of the reservoir is coupled to the proton in such a way, that it “distinguishes” whether the proton is in the left or in the right well of the potential. Due to this asymmetry it may be expected that the steady state of the proton will not be symmetric. Surprisingly, in the Born approximation the reservoir does not change the previous symmetry of the steady state of the proton but changes its character of relaxation.