Dissipation-induced quantum phase transition in a quantum box

In a recent work, Le Hur has shown that dissipative coupling to gate electrodes may play an important role in a quantum box near its degeneracy point [K. Le Hur, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 92}, 196804 (2004)]: While quantum fluctuations of the charge of the dot tend to round Coulomb blockade charging steps of the box, strong enough dissipation suppresses these fluctuations and leads to the reappearance of sharp charging steps. In the present paper we study this quantum phase transition in detail using bosonization and numerical renormalization group methods in the limit of vanishing level spacing.