Carcaterra, A.Akay, A.2015-07-282015-07-282011-07-181539-3755http://hdl.handle.net/11693/12145We investigate the interaction of a particle with a finite-size bath represented by a set of independent linear oscillators with frequencies that fall within a finite bandwidth. We discover that when the oscillators have particular frequency distributions, the finite-size bath behaves much as an infinite-size bath exhibiting dissipation properties and thus allowing irreversible energy absorption from a particle immersed in it. We also present a reinterpretation of the Langevin equation using a perturbation approach in which the small parameter represents the inverse of the number of oscillators in the bath, elucidating the relationship between finite-size and infinite-size bath responses.EnglishOscillatorsRelaxationSystemDifferential EquationsFinite BandwidthFrequency DistributionsIrreversible EnergyLangevin EquationLinear OscillatorPerturbation ApproachArticle10.1103/PhysRevE.84.011121