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arXiv:0906.5122 · Physical Review A

Long-time memory in non-Markovian evolutions

Dariusz Chruściński, Andrzej Kossakowski, Saverio Pascazio

Published Mar 2, 2010• 64 citations
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Abstract

If the dynamics of an open quantum system is non-Markovian, its asymptotic state strongly depends on the initial conditions, even if the dynamics possesses an invariant state. This is the very essence of memory effects. In particular, the asymptotic state can remember and partially preserve its initial entanglement. Interestingly, even if the non-Markovian evolution relaxes to an equilibrium state, this state needs not be invariant. Therefore, the noninvariance of equilibrium becomes a clear sign of non-Markovianity.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.81.032101

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If the dynamics of an open quantum system is non-Markovian, its asymptotic state strongly depends on the initial conditions, even if the dynamics possesses an invariant state. This is the very essence of memory effects. In particular, the asymptotic state can remember and partially preserve its initial entanglement. Interestingly, even if the non-Markovian evolution relaxes to an equilibrium state, this state needs not be invariant. Therefore, the noninvariance of equilibrium becomes a clear sign of non-Markovianity.
The theory of open quantum systems served as a tool to prepare entanglement at the beginning stage of quantum technology and more recently provides an important tool for state preparation. Dynamics given by time dependent Lindbladians are Markovian and lead to decoherence, decay of correlation and convergence to equilibrium. In contrast Non-Markovian evolutions can outperform their Markovian counterparts by enhancing memory. In this letter we compare the trajectories of Markovian and Non-Markovian evolutions starting from a fixed initial value. It turns out that under mild assumptions every trajectory can be obtained from a family of time dependent Lindbladians. Hence Non-Markovianity is invisible if single trajectories are concerned.
Since its rediscovery in the twentieth century, the Mpemba effect, where a far-from-equilibrium state may relax faster than a state closer to equilibrium, has been extensively studied in classical systems and has recently received attention in quantum systems. Many theories explaining this counter-intuitive behavior in classical systems rely on memory effects. However, in quantum systems, the relation between the Mpemba effect and memory has remained unexplored. In this Letter, we consider general non-Markovian open quantum systems and reveal new classes of quantum Mpemba effects, with no analog in Markovian quantum dynamics. Generically, open quantum dynamics possess a finite memory time and a unique steady state. Because of non-Markovian dynamics, even if the system is initialized in the steady state it can take a long time to relax back. We find other initial states that reach the steady state much faster. Most notably, we demonstrate that there can be an initial state in which the system reaches the steady state within the finite memory time itself, giving the fastest possible relaxation to stationarity. We verify the effect for quantum dot systems coupled to electronic reservoirs in equilibrium and nonequilibrium setups at weak, intermediate and strong coupling. Our Letter provides new insights into the rich physics underlying accelerated relaxation in quantum systems.
Although a number of measures for quantum non-Markovianity have been proposed recently, it is still an open question whether these measures directly characterize the memory effect of the environment, i.e., the dependence of a quantum state on its past in a time evolution. In this paper, we present a criterion and propose a measure for non-Markovianity with clear physical interpretations of the memory effect. The non-Markovianity is defined by the inequality $T({t}_{2},{t}_{0})\ensuremath{\ne}T({t}_{2},{t}_{1})T({t}_{1},{t}_{0})$ in terms of memoryless dynamical map TTT introduced in this paper. This definition is conceptually distinct from that based on divisibility used by Rivas et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 050403 (2010)], whose violation is manifested by noncomplete positivity of the dynamical map. We demonstrate via a typical quantum process that without Markovian approximation, nonzero memory effects (non-Markovianity) always exist even if the non-Markovianity is zero by the other non-Markovianity measures.
The basic features of the dynamics of open quantum systems, such as the dissipation of energy, the decay of coherences, the relaxation to an equilibrium or non-equilibrium stationary state, and the transport of excitations in complex structures are of central importance in many applications of quantum mechanics. The theoretical description, analysis and control of non-Markovian quantum processes play an important role in this context. While in a Markovian process an open system irretrievably loses information to its surroundings, non-Markovian processes feature a flow of information from the environment back to the open system, which implies the presence of memory effects and represents the key property of non-Markovian quantum behavior. Here, we review recent ideas developing a general mathematical definition for non-Markoviantiy in the quantum regime and a measure for the degree of memory effects in the dynamics of open systems which are based on the exchange of information between system and environment. We further study the dynamical effects induced by the presence of system-environment correlations in the total initial state and design suitable methods to detect such correlations through local measurements on the open system.
The emergence of memory is a hallmark feature of non-Markovian dynamics. However, the type of memory -- classical or quantum -- required to realize certain dynamics remains unknown. We study the quantum homogenizer as a minimal model of non-Markovian evolution and identify the physical conditions under which genuinely quantum memory becomes necessary. Using entanglement measures and relying only on the local dynamics as a witness, we prove both analytically and numerically the type of memory depends not merely on the dynamics itself, but also on the reservoir's initial entanglement structure, and in particular the propagation of non-classical correlations within it. For different bi- or multi-partite reservoir initializations, we establish a correspondence between interaction strength and entanglement generation. We provide physical criteria and an activation lower bound for the onset of quantum memory. The results may inform us how environmental correlations govern the transition from classical to quantum memory in open quantum systems.
The reduced description of the quantum dynamic processes in the condensed phase environment leads to the equation of motion with a memory kernel. Such a memory effect, termed non-Markovianity, presents more complex dynamics compared to its memoryless or Markovian counterpart, and many chemical systems have been demonstrated through numerical simulations to exhibit non-Markovian quantum dynamics. Explicitly how the memory impacts the dynamic process remains largely unexplored. In this work, we focus on ways to separate the non-Markovian contributions from the dynamics and study the non-Markovian effects. Specifically, we developed a rigorous procedure for mapping the exact non-Markovian quantum propagator to the Lindblad form. Consequently, it allows us to extract the negative decay rate from the Lindbladian that is the signature of the non-Markovianity. By including or excluding the negative rate in the time evolution, we can decisively pinpoint the influence of non-Markovianity on the system's properties such as coherence, entanglement, and equilibrium state distribution. The understanding of such memory effects on the dynamic process suggests the possibility of leveraging non-Markovianity for quantum control.