Quantum tunneling at zero temperature in the strong friction regime

In the large damping limit we derive a Fokker-Planck equation in configuration space (the so-called Smoluchowski equation) describing a Brownian particle immersed into a thermal environment and subjected to a nonlinear external force. We quantize this stochastic system and survey the problem of escape over a double-well potential barrier. Our finding is that the quantum Kramers rate does not depend on the friction coefficient at low temperatures; i.e., we predict a superfluidity phenomenon in overdamped open systems. Moreover, at zero temperature we show that the quantum escape rate does not vanish in the strong friction regime. This result, therefore, is in contrast with the work by Ankerhold et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 086802 (2001)]] in which no quantum tunneling is predicted at zero temperature.