Berry’s phase in the presence of a stochastically evolving environment: A geometric mechanism for energy-level broadening

The generic Berry phase scenario in which a two-level system is coupled to a second system whose dynamical coordinate is slowly varying is generalized to allow for stochastic evolution of the slow system. The stochastic behavior is produced by coupling the slow system to a heat reservoir, which is modeled by a bath of harmonic oscillators initially in equilibrium at temperature T, and whose spectral density has a bandwidth that is small compared to the energy-level spacing of the fast system. The well-known energy-level shifts produced by Berry’s phase in the fast system, in conjunction with the stochastic motion of the slow system, leads to a broadening of the fast system energy levels. In the limit of strong damping and sufficiently low temperature, we determine the degree of level broadening analytically, and show that the slow system dynamics satisfies a Langevin equation in which Lorentz-like and electriclike forces appear as a consequence of geometrical effects. We also determine the average energy level shift produced in the fast system by this mechanism.