Anomalous wandering
Consider a classical particle of mass m in a quantum bath
Langevin equation for an otherwise free particle,
In the commonly used Caldeira-Legget formalism, the force is linearly coupled to the bath,
However, a linear coupling is forbiddent for a neutral, but polarizable, particle.
With linear coupling, a free field theory implies a Gaussian distribution for φ,
hence the force and the displacement are also Gaussian distributed, entirely described by the variance
For a neutral particle (no linear coupling), the quadratic force is not Gaussian distribute; leading to cumulants
consistent with a power-law probability distribution, reminiscent of Levy flights:
Potential realizations for solitons in Bose-Einstein condensate.