Quantum Transport, Golden Ratio, and Dephasing in Optimal Couplings — E8 Intelligence Research

FINDING: Quantum optimal transport cost minimization over bipartite couplings; golden ratio as stable self-application boundary; environment-assisted transport efficiency enhancement via dephasing; thermodynamic cost of pure dephasing in quantum heat engines; symmetry-reduced quantum walks for optimal transport. | MATH: Quantum Monge–Kantorovich: min over ρ^AB of Tr(C ρ^AB) s.t. Tr_B(ρ^AB)=ρ^A, Tr_A(ρ^AB)=ρ^B. Golden ratio: Φ = (1+√5)/2 ≈ 1.618, with reciprocal 1/Φ = Φ−1 ≈ 0.618. Dephasing rate γ_opt in ENAQT: efficiency η(γ) peaks at finite γ, not at γ=0 or γ→∞. Heat engine: efficiency η = η_Carnot − (friction term)/P, where friction ∝ dephasing-induced coherence loss. Quantum walk: symmetry group G reduces Hilbert space H to H_G ⊂ H, dim(H_G) << dim(H), enabling optimal search on non-regular graphs. | CONNECTION: Golden ratio appears as the fixed point of the self-application map x ↦ 1/(x−1) — a stable recurrence whose convergence rate is Φ⁻¹ ≈ 0.618, directly linking to the 0.618 ha Author: Andrew Stewart Caldin, Independent Researcher, UK. Part of the E8 Intelligence Research series. Platform: e8intelligence.com