Master equations are probably the most fundamental equations for anyone working in quantum optics in the presence of dissipation. In this context it is then incredibly useful to have efficient ways of coding and simulating such equations in the computer, and in this notes I try to introduce in a comprehensive way how do I do so, focusing on Matlab, but making it general enough so that it can be directly translated to any other language or software of choice. I inherited most of my methods from Juan José García-Ripoll (whose numerical abilities I cannot praise enough), changing them here and there to accommodate them to the way my (fairly limited) numerical brain works, and to connect them as much as possible to how I understand the theory behind them. At present, the notes focus on how to code master equations and find their steady state, but I hope soon I will be able to update them with time evolution methods, including how to deal with time-dependent master equations. During the last 4 years I've tested these methods in various different contexts, including circuit quantum electrodynamics, the laser problem, optical parametric oscillators, and optomechanical systems. Comments and (constructive) criticism are greatly welcome, and will be properly credited and acknowledged.
Master equations are probably the most fundamental equations for anyone working in quantum optics in the presence of dissipation. In this context it is then incredibly useful to have efficient ways of coding and simulating such equations in the computer, and in this notes I try to introduce in a comprehensive way how do I do so, focusing on Matlab, but making it general enough so that it can be directly translated to any other language or software of choice. I inherited most of my methods from Juan José García-Ripoll (whose numerical abilities I cannot praise enough), changing them here and there to accommodate them to the way my (fairly limited) numerical brain works, and to connect them as much as possible to how I understand the theory behind them. At present, the notes focus on how to code master equations and find their steady state, but I hope soon I will be able to update them with time evolution methods, including how to deal with time-dependent master equations. During the last 4 years I've tested these methods in various different contexts, including circuit quantum electrodynamics, the laser problem, optical parametric oscillators, and optomechanical systems. Comments and (constructive) criticism are greatly welcome, and will be properly credited and acknowledged.
Open quantum systems have drawn attention over decades due to its applicability in the foundation of theoretical physics, e.g. statistical mechanics, quantum mechanics and condensed matter physics. The dynamics of open quantum systems has been described as separate entities from their surrounding environment that consists of a very large number of modes, somehow coupled to the mode of the system. Even though the exact solution of the dynamical behavior of the system is impossible to calculate, we obtain a tentative solution using the crucial Markov approximation. The input-output formalism of the quantum Langevin equation (QLE) has been considered as a useful tool which provides a semi-classical description of the dynamics of the system, whereas the master equation provides a complete picture of the dynamics of the system expressed in terms of density matrix. While studying the dynamics of nonlinear system/environment coupling using QLE, we see, for a small value of external field, that the steady state system field does not change much from the steady state field obtained in the absence of nonlinear dissipation. However, in a case where a stronger external field is applied, we see that the deviation becomes substantial from the solution of linear system. We also see that the nonlinear coupling introduces significant difference in the cavity fluctuation spectrum. The description, therefore, provides a potential explanation of parametric effects in terms of nonlinear dissipation phenomena associated with the nonlinear coupling. Even though the theories developed in the context of open quantum systems have proven to be powerful tools, they do not provide a satisfactory platform to be implemented on non-linear Hamiltonians. We often approximate it by linearizing over nonlinear steady state field amplitude, and therefore, the interesting effects are often overlooked. The limitation of the analytics provokes us to simulate open quantum dynamics numerically. The numerical method consists of transformation of the environmental degrees of freedom to a one-dimensional many-body chain, and the computational technique includes numerical diagonalization and renormalization process. The time-adaptive density matrix renormalisation group (t-DMRG) is known as one of the most powerful techniques for the simulation of strongly-correlated many-body quantum systems. In this thesis, along with the theoretical modeling, we implement DMRG numerical scheme for the simulation of canonical S/B model by mapping it to one-dimensional harmonic chain with nearest neighbor interactions, and use the method to investigate the dynamics of the free dissipative system. The thermalization of open quantum systems is also studied by generating minimally entangled typical thermal states (METTS) through imaginary time evolution, and real-time evolving an empty system in the presence of the thermal bath. Further, we simulate coherently driven free dissipative Kerr nonlinear system numerically using Euler's method by solving Heisenberg equation of motion and t-DMRG algorithm, and demonstrate how the numerical results are analogous to classical bistability. By comparing with analytics, we see that the DMRG numerics is analogous to the quantum-mechanical exact solution obtained by mapping the equation of motion of the density matrix of the system to a Fokker-Plank equation. The comparison between two different numerical techniques shows that the semi-classical Euler's method determines the dynamics of the system field of one among two coherent branches, whereas DMRG numerics gives the superposition of both of them. Hence, DMRG-determined time dynamics undergoes generating non-classical states. Our approach of dealing with nonlinearity represents an important contribution in the developments of technique to study the dynamical and steady-state behavior of open quantum systems, which is a fundamental aspect of quantum physics.
My research has three main foci, one which is of interest to the fields of quantum information and quantum optics is to characterize the effects of coupling between quantum systems. Advances in technology made since the conception of quantum mechanics spurred the development of quantum technologies like quantum optics and quantum computing. These applications require a good understanding of the quantum systems that compose them, and the clever ways in which the information in these systems is stored and manipulated. By understanding the ways which quantum systems interact with their environment, their usefulness can be further utilized. The second is to develop methods of calculation which simplify the calculational and computational side of quantum dynamics. Understanding how quantum systems evolve in time is very important, but traditional methods of solving for the dynamics of quantum systems struggle to deal with time dependent parameters. Using results from the theory of Lie algebras, I will show how quantum dynamics problems can be made less computationally intensive by avoiding the partial differential equations typically associated with such problems and reducing the problem to a system of coupled ordinary differential equations. The third focus is to develop methods of visualizing properties of quantum systems. I think this is important as an educational tool and as a way to develop intuition about how quantum systems evolve considering how few opportunities there are to visualize quantum effects on a macroscopic scale. This problem is particularly challenging because quantum mechanics is non-deterministic, meaning that the only nontrivial definitive statements that can be made regarding quantum systems deal with probabilities. This coupled with the fact that many of the systems of interest depend on upwards of six variables and also evolve in time make creating useful visual representations challenging. Despite the challenges, I feel that useful insights can be gained from the visualizations, and will illustrate a few examples.
Simulation of open quantum systems is undoubtedly critical to design of quantum devices and applications of quantum technologies since dynamics of open quantum systems cannot be solved analytically in general. However, the dimension of open quantum systems grows exponentially as the number of their subsystems increases or as involving complicated environments, which reduces the computational efficiency of the simulation. In this paper, we boost numerical simulation of master equations of open quantum systems from several aspects with which the total time and the occupied memory in the simulation are significantly reduced without losing precision. Our method can be applied to the simulation of non-Markovian quantum systems described by an augmented system model as well. We conduct numerical experiments on simulation of a non-Markovian spin chain. Compared with the algorithm in a well-known toolbox, QuTiP, our method can take 26.3% time and less memory under fair conditions.
A method of exactly solving the master equation is presented in this letter. The explicit form of the solution is determined by the time evolution of a composite system including an auxiliary system and the open system in question. The effective Hamiltonian governing the time evolution of the composed system are derived from the master equation. Two examples, the dissipative two-level system and the damped harmonic oscillator, are presented to illustrate the solving procedure. PACS number(s): 05.30.-d, 05.40.+j, 42.50.Ct Typeset using REVTEX 1 The problem of open quantum systems has been around since the beginnings of quantum mechanics [1]. Important contributions to this general area have been made by researchers working in fields as diverse as cosmology [2], condensed matter [3], quantum optics [4,5], particle physics [6], quantum measurement [7], and quantum computation [8]. The problem can be described generally as interest in the effective dynamics of the open system surrounded
All real quantum systems are open, and in particular in thefield of quantumoptics, the measurement process has always been a fundamental object of study.Naturally, simulating such systems and processes on computers is of great interest.In this thesis, dissipation of energy and the process of photodetectionis studied through numerical means. In particular, a new Monte Carlo methodfor solving master equations is presented and applied to the case of resonance fluorescence. It provides a great speedup for large times compared to methodspreviously presented.
Quantum master equations are an invaluable tool to model the dynamics of a plethora of microscopic systems, ranging from quantum optics and quantum information processing to energy and charge transport, electronic and nuclear spin resonance, photochemistry, and more. This tutorial offers a concise and pedagogical introduction to quantum master equations, accessible to a broad, cross-disciplinary audience. The reader is guided through the basics of quantum dynamics with hands-on examples that increase in complexity. The tutorial covers essential methods such as the use of the Lindblad master equation, Redfield relaxation, and Floquet theory, as well as techniques such as Suzuki-Trotter expansion and numerical approaches for sparse solvers. These methods are illustrated with code snippets implemented in and other languages, which can be used as a starting point for generalization and more sophisticated implementations. Published by the American Physical Society 2024