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arXiv:1312.1600 · Journal of Statistical Mechanics Theory and Experiment

The open quantum Brownian motions

Michel Bauer, Denis Bernard, Antoine Tilloy

Published Sep 8, 2014• 32 citations
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Abstract

Using quantum parallelism on random walks as the original seed, we introduce new quantum stochastic processes, the open quantum Brownian motions. They describe the behaviors of quantum walkers—with internal degrees of freedom which serve as random gyroscopes—interacting with a series of probes which serve as quantum coins. These processes may also be viewed as the scaling limit of open quantum random walks and we develop this approach along three different lines: the quantum trajectory, the quantum dynamical map and the quantum stochastic differential equation. We also present a study of the simplest case, with a two level system as an internal gyroscope, illustrating the interplay between the ballistic and diffusive behaviors at work in these processes. Notation : orbital (walker) Hilbert space, in the discrete, in the continuum : internal spin (or gyroscope) Hilbert space : system Hilbert space : probe (or quantum coin) Hilbert space, : density matrix for the total system (walker + internal spin + quantum coins) : reduced density matrix on : : system density matrix in a quantum trajectory: . If diagonal and localized in position: ρ t : internal density matrix in a simple quantum trajectory X t : walker position in a simple quantum trajectory B t : normalized Brownian motion ξ t , : quantum noises

DOI
10.1088/1742-5468/2014/09/p09001

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Using quantum parallelism on random walks as the original seed, we introduce new quantum stochastic processes, the open quantum Brownian motions. They describe the behaviors of quantum walkers—with internal degrees of freedom which serve as random gyroscopes—interacting with a series of probes which serve as quantum coins. These processes may also be viewed as the scaling limit of open quantum random walks and we develop this approach along three different lines: the quantum trajectory, the quantum dynamical map and the quantum stochastic differential equation. We also present a study of the simplest case, with a two level system as an internal gyroscope, illustrating the interplay between the ballistic and diffusive behaviors at work in these processes. Notation : orbital (walker) Hilbert space, in the discrete, in the continuum : internal spin (or gyroscope) Hilbert space : system Hilbert space : probe (or quantum coin) Hilbert space, : density matrix for the total system (walker + internal spin + quantum coins) : reduced density matrix on : : system density matrix in a quantum trajectory: . If diagonal and localized in position: ρ t : internal density matrix in a simple quantum trajectory X t : walker position in a simple quantum trajectory B t : normalized Brownian motion ξ t , : quantum noises
This article is a mathematical analysis of the Open Quantum Brownian Motion. This object was introduced by Bernard, Bauer, Benoist and Tilloy as the limit of a family of Open Quantum Random Walks on the discrete line. We prove the convergence for the three possible descriptions of this object: the quantum trajectory satisfying a Belavkin Equation, the unitary evolution on the Fock space satisfying a quantum Langevin Equation, and the Lindbladian evolution. We introduce a very general framework for the continual measurement of non-demolition observables, which is applied to the measurement of the position of the Open Quantum Brownian Motion, and we probe some questions related to the convergence of processes in this context.
Open quantum random walks (OQRWs) deal with quantum random motions on a line for systems with internal and orbital degrees of freedom. The internal system behaves as a quantum random gyroscope coding for the direction of the orbital moves. We reveal the existence of a transition, depending on OQRW moduli, in the internal system behaviors from simple oscillations to random flips between two unstable pure states. This induces a transition in the orbital motions from the usual diffusion to ballistically induced diffusion with a large mean free path and large effective diffusion constant at large times. We also show that mixed states of the internal system are converted into random pure states during the process. We touch upon possible experimental realizations.
Open Quantum Brownian motion describes a Quantum Brownian particle with an additional internal degree of freedom.The quantum master equation for a free Open Quantum Brownian walker with two‐dimensional internal degree of freedom interacting decoherently with the dissipative environment is derived. Using the analytical solution for the moments of the position distribution of the Brownian walker, one finds that the steady state average position of the walker can be controlled by the strength of an external classical driving field.
Open Quantum Brownian Motion (OQBM) was introduced as a scaling limit of discrete-time open quantum walks. This limit defines a new class of quantum Brownian motion, which incorporates both the external and internal degrees of freedom of the Brownian particle. We consider a weakly driven Brownian particle confined in a harmonic potential and dissipatively coupled to a thermal bath. Applying the rotating wave approximation (RWA) to the system-bath interaction Hamiltonian, we derive a completely positive Born-Markov master equation for the reduced dynamics. We express the resulting master equation in the coordinate representation and, utilizing the adiabatic elimination of fast variables, derive a completely positive hybrid quantum-classical master equation that defines OQBM. We illustrate the resulting dynamics using examples of initial Gaussian and non-Gaussian distributions of the OQBM walker. Both examples reveal the emergence of Gaussian distributions in the limiting behavior of the OQBM dynamics, which closely matches that of the standard OQBM. With the help of the obtained OQBM master equation, we derive the equations for the nnn-th moments and the cumulants of the position distribution of the open Brownian walker. We subsequently solve these equations numerically for Gaussian initial distributions across various parameter regimes. Notably, we find that the third-order cumulant is nonzero, indicating that the dynamics' intrinsic generator is non-Gaussian.
We present a detailed study of a simple quantum stochastic process, the quantum phase space Brownian motion, which we obtain as the Markovian limit of a simple model of an open quantum system. This physical description of the process allows us to specify and to construct the dilation of the quantum dynamical maps, including conditional quantum expectations. The quantum phase space Brownian motion possesses many properties similar to those of the classical Brownian motion, notably its increments are independent and identically distributed. Possible applications to dissipative phenomena in the quantum Hall effect are suggested.
It is believed that in the long time limit, the limiting behavior of the discrete-time quantum random walk will cross from quantum to classical if we take into account of the decoherence. The computer simulation has already shown that for the discrete-time one-dimensional Hadamard quantum random walk with coin decoherence such that the measurement operators on the coin space are defined by A0 = Ic √1 − p, A1 = |R > < R| √p and A2 = |L > < L > < L| √p is diffusive when 0 < p ≤ 1 and it is ballistic when P = 0. In this thesis, we are going to let p to be dynamical depending on the step t, that is, we consider p = 1/tß, ß ≥ 0 and we found that it has sub-ballistic behavior for 0 < ß < 1. Furthermore, we study not only the coin decoherence, but the total decoherence, that means the measurement operators apply on the Hilbert space H = Hp ⊗ Hc instead of the coin space only. We find that the results are both sub-ballistic for the coin and total decoherence when 0 < ß < 1. Moreover, according to the model given in [T. A. Brun, H. A. Carteret, and A. Ambainis, Phys. Rev. A 67, 032304 (2003)], we know that if the walker has chance to hop to the second nearest neighbor lattice in one step, the long-time behavior is also sub-ballistic and it is similar to that the walker can hop to the third nearest neighbor lattice in one step. By the way, we also find that if we combine the classical part of the model given in [Jing Zhao and Peiqing Tong. One-dimensional quantum walks subject to next nearest neighbor hopping decoherence, Nanjing Normal University, preprint (2014)] with different step length, then this decoherence will also cross from quantum to classical. Finally, we define the quantum γ-stable walk and obtain the quantum γ-stable law with decoherence. By this decoherence, we can see that the limiting behavior of the quantum stable walk will also cross from quantum to classical and we shows that it spreads out faster than the classical stable walk.