Return to thermal equilibrium by the solution of a quantum Langevin equation

A quantum-mechanical treatment of the evolution of an anharmonic oscillator coupled to a heat bath is given. It is shown that for a certain class of anharmonic potentials the heat bath drives the oscillator to an equilibrium state, close to the quantum Gibbs state associated to the potential. Thus a partial proof is provided for a conjecture of R. Benguria and M. Kac.This paper contains part of the author's Ph.D. work, done at the Institute for Theoretical Physics of Groningen State University, Groningen, the Netherlands.