BIFURCATIONS IN THE QUANTUM NONLINEAR DIMER

Strong interactions with phonons cause nonlinearity to appear in the e volution of quasiparticles such as electrons, or electronic and vibrat ional excitations. Our study of the evolution of such nonlinear quantu m systems, when they are placed in contact with a thermal reservoir, h as been found to exhibit rich behavior including a Hopf bifurcation. T he nature of this bifurcation is studied and experimental manifestatio ns are indicated.