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arXiv:1002.2172 · Physical Review A

Exact master equations for the non-Markovian decay of a qubit

Bassano Vacchini, Heinz‐Peter Breuer

Published Apr 7, 2010• 150 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Exact master equations describing the decay of a two-state system into a structured reservoir are constructed. By employing the exact solution for the model, analytical expressions are determined for the memory kernel of the Nakajima-Zwanzig master equation and for the generator of the corresponding time-convolutionless master equation. This approach allows an explicit comparison of the convergence behavior of the corresponding perturbation expansions. Moreover, the structure of widely used phenomenological master equations with a memory kernel may be incompatible with a nonperturbative treatment of the underlying microscopic model. Several physical implications of the results on the microscopic analysis and the phenomenological modeling of non-Markovian quantum dynamics of open systems are discussed.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.81.042103

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Exact master equations describing the decay of a two-state system into a structured reservoir are constructed. By employing the exact solution for the model, analytical expressions are determined for the memory kernel of the Nakajima-Zwanzig master equation and for the generator of the corresponding time-convolutionless master equation. This approach allows an explicit comparison of the convergence behavior of the corresponding perturbation expansions. Moreover, the structure of widely used phenomenological master equations with a memory kernel may be incompatible with a nonperturbative treatment of the underlying microscopic model. Several physical implications of the results on the microscopic analysis and the phenomenological modeling of non-Markovian quantum dynamics of open systems are discussed.
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We present a non-Markovian master equation for a qubit interacting with a general reservoir, which is derived according to the Nakajima—Zwanzig and the time convolutionless projection operator technique. The non-Markovian solutions and Markovian solution of dynamical decay of a qubit are compared. The results indicate the validity of non-Markovian approach in different coupling regimes and also show that the Markovian master equation may not precisely describe the dynamics of an open quantum system in some situation. The non-Markovian solutions may be effective for many qubits independently interacting with the heated reservoirs.
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The driven two-level system is a useful model to describe many quantum objects, particularly in quantum information processing. However, the exact master equation for such a system has barely been explored. Making use of the Feynman-Vernon influence functional theory, we derive an exact non-Markovian master equation for the driven two-level system and show the lost feature in the perturbative treatment for this system. The perturbative treatment leads to the time-convolutionless (TCL) and Nakajima-Zwanzig (NZ) master equations. So to this end we derive the TCL and NZ master equations for the system and compare the dynamics given by the three master equations. We find the validity condition for the TCL and NZ master equations. Based on the exact non-Markovian master equation, we analyze the regime of validity for the secular approximation in the time-convolutionless master equation and discuss the leading corrections of the nonsecular terms to the quantum dynamics. Significant effects are found in the dynamics of the driven system.