  Two aspects of the classic two-level Landau--Zener (LZ) problem are
considered. First, we address the LZ problem when one or both levels decay,
i.e., $\veps_j(t) \to \veps_j(t)-i \Gamma_j/2$. We find that if the system
evolves from an initial time $-T$ to a final time $+T$ such that $|\veps_1(\pm
T)-\veps_2(\pm T)|$ is not too large, the LZ survival probability of a state $|
j \ra$ can {\em increase} with increasing decay rate of the other state $|i \ne
j \ra$. This surprising result occurs because the decay results in crossing of
the two eigenvalues of the instantaneous non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. On the
other hand, if $|\veps_1(\pm T)-\veps_2(\pm T)| \to \infty$ as $T \to \infty$,
the probability is {\em independent} of the decay rate. These results are based
on analytic solutions of the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equations for two
cases: (a) the energy levels depend linearly on time, and (b) the energy levels
are bounded and of the form $\veps_{1,2}(t) = \pm \veps \tanh (t/{\cal T})$.
Second, we study LZ transitions affected by dephasing by formulating the
Landau--Zener problem with noise in terms of a Schr\"{o}dinger-Langevin
stochastic coupled set of differential equations. The LZ survival probability
then becomes a random variable whose probability distribution is shown to
behave very differently for long and short dephasing times. We also discuss the
combined effects of decay and dephasing on the LZ probability.
