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arXiv:1403.8102 · Journal of Physics A Mathematical and Theoretical

On the structure of the master equation for a two-level system coupled to a thermal bath

Inés de Vega

Published Mar 18, 2015• 5 citations
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Abstract

We derive a master equation from the exact stochastic Liouville–von-Neumann (SLN) equation (Stockburger and Grabert 2002 Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 170407 ). The latter depends on two correlated noises and describes exactly the dynamics of an oscillator (which can be either harmonic or present an anharmonicity) coupled to an environment at thermal equilibrium. The newly derived master equation is obtained by performing analytically the average over different noise trajectories. It is found to have a complex hierarchical structure that might be helpful to explain the convergence problems occurring when performing numerically the stochastic average of trajectories given by the SLN equation (Koch et al 2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 230402, Koch 2010 PhD thesis Fakultät Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften der Technischen Universitat Dresden).

DOI
10.1088/1751-8113/48/14/145202

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We derive a master equation from the exact stochastic Liouville–von-Neumann (SLN) equation (Stockburger and Grabert 2002 Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 170407 ). The latter depends on two correlated noises and describes exactly the dynamics of an oscillator (which can be either harmonic or present an anharmonicity) coupled to an environment at thermal equilibrium. The newly derived master equation is obtained by performing analytically the average over different noise trajectories. It is found to have a complex hierarchical structure that might be helpful to explain the convergence problems occurring when performing numerically the stochastic average of trajectories given by the SLN equation (Koch et al 2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 230402, Koch 2010 PhD thesis Fakultät Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften der Technischen Universitat Dresden).
We extend a standard stochastic theory to study open quantum systems coupled to a generic quantum environment. We exemplify the general framework by studying a two-level quantum system coupled bilinearly to the three fundamental classes of non-interacting particles: bosons, fermions, and spins. In this unified stochastic approach, the generalized stochastic Liouville equation (SLE) formally captures the exact quantum dissipations when noise variables with appropriate statistics for different bath models are applied. Anharmonic effects of a non-Gaussian bath are precisely encoded in the bath multi-time correlation functions that noise variables have to satisfy. Starting from the SLE, we devise a family of generalized hierarchical equations by averaging out the noise variables and expand bath multi-time correlation functions in a complete basis of orthonormal functions. The general hierarchical equations constitute systems of linear equations that provide numerically exact simulations of quantum dynamics. For bosonic bath models, our general hierarchical equation of motion reduces exactly to an extended version of hierarchical equation of motion which allows efficient simulation for arbitrary spectral densities and temperature regimes. Similar efficiency and flexibility can be achieved for the fermionic bath models within our formalism. The spin bath models can be simulated with two complementary approaches in the present formalism. (I) They can be viewed as an example of non-Gaussian bath models and be directly handled with the general hierarchical equation approach given their multi-time correlation functions. (II) Alternatively, each bath spin can be first mapped onto a pair of fermions and be treated as fermionic environments within the present formalism.
Using the exact path integral solution for the damped harmonic oscillator it is shown that in general there does not exist an exact dissipative Liouville operator describing the dynamics of the oscillator for arbitrary initial bath preparations. Exact nonstationary Liouville operators can be found only for particular preparations. Three physically meaningful examples are examined. An exact master equation is derived for thermal initial conditions. Second, the Liouville operator governing the time evolution of equilibrium correlations is obtained. Third, factorizing initial conditions are studied. Additionally, one can show that there are approximate Liouville operators independent of the initial preparation describing the long-time dynamics under appropriate conditions. The general form of these approximate master equations is derived and the coefficients are determined for special cases of the bath spectral density including the Ohmic, Drude, and weak coupling cases. The connection with earlier work is discussed.
A systematic procedure for deriving the master equation of a dissipative system is reported in the framework of stochastic description. For the Caldeira-Leggett model of the harmonic-oscillator bath, a detailed and elementary derivation of the bath-induced stochastic field is presented. The dynamics of the system is thereby fully described by a stochastic differential equation, and the desired master equation would be acquired with statistical averaging. It is shown that the existence of a closed-form master equation depends on the specificity of the system as well as the feature of the dissipation characterized by the spectral density function. For a dissipative harmonic oscillator it is observed that the correlation between the stochastic field due to the bath and the system can be decoupled, and the master equation naturally results. Such an equation possesses the Lindblad form in which time-dependent coefficients are determined by a set of integral equations. It is proved that the obtained master equation is equivalent to the well-known Hu-Paz-Zhang equation based on the path-integral technique. The procedure is also used to obtain the master equation of a dissipative harmonic oscillator in time-dependent fields.
A master equation for a quantum system coupled to a heat bath with stochastically fluctuating energy levels is derived by making use of the ensemble averaging and the averaging with respect to a stochastic process in the bath. Relaxation terms are determined in the Born approximation with respect to the system-bath interaction and the damping parameters related to a relaxation kernel are specified. In parallel with the spectral strength of the bath, the damping parameters determine the transient times for the Markovian description creating the physical origin of the slippage [A. Suarez, R. Sibey, and I. Oppenheim, J. Chem. Phys. 97, 5101 (1992)]. The influence of energy fluctuations of the bath is analyzed for a two-level system including the solution of the corresponding non-Markovian equation for the level population difference. The conditions for the formation of Boltzmann's thermal ratio between steady-state populations are evaluated as well.
The methods of nonequilibrium density-matrix and coarse-temporal conception are used to obtain the kinetic equation for the parameters ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathit{n}\mathit{m}}$(t)=Sp[\ensuremath{\rho}^(t)\ensuremath{\Vert}n〉〈m\ensuremath{\Vert}] of a quantum-dynamic system (QDS) interacting with a thermal bath and external stochastic field. It is important that the stochastic field is taken exactly into consideration. For diagonal QDS parameters ${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathit{n}\mathit{n}}$(t) this equation is reduced to the generalized Pauli equation (GPE) with stochastic time-dependent coefficients wnm{\mathit{w}}_{\mathit{n}\mathit{m}}wnm​(t). Special attention is given to the procedure of averaging over stochastic processes. It is shown that after averaging over energy fluctuations affected by the stochastic field, in the first cumulant approximation in terms of stochastic processes wnm{\mathit{w}}_{\mathit{n}\mathit{m}}wnm​(t), the GPE is transformed to the Pauli equation for the QDS state population Pn{\mathit{P}}_{\mathit{n}}Pn​(t)=〈${\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{\mathit{n}\mathit{n}}$(t)〉f{\mathrm{〉}}_{\mathit{f}}〉f​. As an example, the relaxation behavior of a two-level system interacting with a dichotomous field (dichotomous Markovian process of kangaroo type) and a harmonic oscillator coupled with a thermal bath is considered. It is shown that the probability of relaxation transitions between energy levels may be changed by several orders of magnitude under the influence of the dichotomous field.
Time evolution of a harmonic oscillator linearly coupled to a heat bath is compared for three classes of initial states for the bath modes-grand canonical ensemble, number states, and coherent states. It is shown that for a wide class of number states the behavior of the oscillator is similar to the case of the equilibrium bath. If the bath modes are initially in coherent states, then the variances of the oscillator coordinate and momentum, as well as its entanglement to the bath, asymptotically approach the same values as for the oscillator at zero temperature and the average coordinate and momentum show a Brownian-like behavior. We derive an exact master equation for the characteristic function of the oscillator valid for arbitrary factorized initial conditions. In the case of the equilibrium bath this equation reduces to an equation of the Hu-Paz-Zhang type, while for the coherent states bath it leads to an exact stochastic master equation with a multiplicative noise.