title: Berry phase in a nonisolated system.
abstract: We investigate the effect of the environment on a Berry phase measurement involving a spin-half. We model the spin + environment using a biased spin-boson Hamiltonian with a time-dependent magnetic field. We find that, contrary to naive expectations, the Berry phase acquired by the spin can be observed, but only on time scales which are neither too short nor very long. However this Berry phase is not the same as for the isolated spin-half. It does not have a simple geometric interpretation in terms of the adiabatic evolution of either bare spin states or the dressed spin resonances. This result is crucial for proposed Berry phase measurements in superconducting nanocircuits.
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Robert S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Whitney
authors.forename: Yuval
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Gefen