Eric R. Bittner
Associate Professor
	Office: 221 Fleming Phone: (713) 743-2775 Email: bittner@uh.edu Education B.S., Valparaiso University, 1988 Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1994 NSF Postdoctoral Fellow, UT Austin, 1994-1996 Visiting Scholar, Stanford University, 1996-1997 Honors, Fellowships, etc. NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Chemistry, 1995 NSF CAREER Award in Chemistry, 1999 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2007 Publications Homepage Conference: Energy flow dynamics in biomaterial systems     October 2-5, 2007

Research Interests

Theoretical Chemical Physics      My research in the area of quantum dynamics is primarily focused upon understanding how motions in the condensed phase influence the dynamics of an imbedded quantum mechanical system. The computational methods we use for simulating these systems utilize a mixed description of the dynamics: the strongly quantized motions are treated via quantum mechanics whereas the remaining are treated via classical mechanics. While this approach is quite accurate and provides a molecular level description of the dynamics, it is not without a variety of pitfalls, such as the lack of coherent coupling between the quantum and classical variables, which we seek to uncover and demonstrate their physical impact. A considerable part of our research efforts goes into the development of new methodologies for quantum mechanics, semi-classical treatments, and formal development. Topical Areas: (i) Excited state dynamics in conjugated polymers      Conjugated systems are of current technological importance in the production of plastic polymer-based light-emitting and light harvesting devices. Our recent work has highlighted the role of electron/phonon interactions in these systems through Franck-Condon methods and lattice dynamical models. In particular we have been studying the role electron and hole mobilty plays in enhancing the electro-luminescent yield in polymer LED's, exciton migration in single chain polymers, and Franck-Condon models for absorption/emission spectra. (ii) Quantum Dissipation and Decoherence      We are pioneering the development of trajectory based approaches for quantum mechanics using the causal interpretation of quantum theory. Here, causal trajectories emerge as solutions of the quantum Hamilton-Jacobi equation which contains non-local interactions between the trajectories. We are using such descriptions to develop finite-element based approaches as well as stochatic trajectory methods. Applications have focused upon Liouville space dynamics for dissipative systems, solution of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for quantum cosmology, and quantum stochastic computing algorithms.