Journal of Statistical Physics, Vol. 121, Nos. 3/4, November 2005. p. 463-496.
We study the transport property of diffusion in a finite translationally invariant quantum subsystem described by a tight-binding Hamiltonian with a single energy band. The subsystem interacts with its environment by a coupling expressed in terms of correlation functions which are delta-correlated in space and time. For weak coupling, the time evolution of the subsystem density matrix is ruled by a quantum master equation of Lindblad type. Thanks to the invariance under spatial translations, we can apply the Bloch theorem to the subsystem density matrix and exactly diagonalize the time evolution superop-erator to obtain the complete spectrum of its eigenvalues, which fully describe the relaxation to equilibrium. Above a critical coupling which is inversely proportional to the size of the subsystem, the spectrum at given wave number contains an isolated eigenvalue describing diffusion. The other eigenvalues rule the decay of the populations and quantum coherences with decay rates which are proportional to the intensity of the environmental noise. An analytical expression is obtained for the dispersion relation of diffusion. The diffusion coefficient is proportional to the square of the width of the energy band and inversely proportional to the intensity of the environmental noise because diffusion results from the perturbation of quantum tunneling by the enviromental fluctuations in this model. Diffusion disappears below the critical coupling.