Consider an open quantum system S, interacting with its environment E, and also an ancillary Hilbert space R. The reduced dynamics of the system S is given by a completely positive map, if the set S={ρSE} , of possible initial states of the system-environment, can be written as a steered set from a tripartite Markov state ƮRSE. In this paper, we call such steered states as Markovian states ρSE, and study a physical case, in which the reduced dynamics of the system can be completely positive, even when the initial states of the system-environment ρSE are non-Markovian.
Consider a bipartite quantum system S=AB such that each part interacts only with its local environment. Under such circumstances, one expects that the entanglement between parts A and B does not increase after the time evolution. In fact, this is the case if the reduced dynamics of the system is given by
EA⊗EB, where
EA and
EB are quantum channels, i.e., completely positive trace-preserving maps. But, the reduced dynamics of the system may be given by a map as
ΨA⊗ΨB, where
ΨA and
ΨB are local non-positive maps. Then, the entanglement between A and B can exceed its initial value, as was shown in the case studied by Jordan et al. [Phys. Rev. A 76, 022102 (2007)]. In this paper, we first explore the general circumstances under which one can find such cases as they found. Next, we introduce another general procedure which leads to local non-positive maps that exhibit entanglement exceeding. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this apparent entanglement increase in the two above procedures corresponds physically to the retrieval of pre-existing inaccessible entanglement stored across the global system-environment degrees of freedom, rather than genuine generation of the entanglement
ex nihilo.
In the simplest approximation, the reduced dynamics of a quantum system
S interacting with its environment
E is considered to be given by a completely positive map. But, in general, this is not the case. In fact, the reduced dynamics of the system in not even linear, in general. Whether the reduced dynamics is linear or not is determined by two factors: the set of possible initial states of the system-environment $\mathcal{S}=\left\lbrace ρ_{SE} \right\rbrace $, and the joint system-environment unitary evolution
U. When
U is factorisable as
U=US⊗UE, then we can choose
S=D, where
D is the set of all system-environment density operators. In other words, when
U is factorisable, the reduced dynamics of the system
S is linear (in fact unitary) for arbitrary initial state of the system-environment
ρSE. We show that this result cannot be generalized to any non-factorisable
U: For any non-factorisable unitary evolution of the whole system-environment
U, the set
S must be chosen as a proper subset of
D to achieve linear reduced dynamics. As a byproduct, considering a convex set of possible initial states of the system-environment
S such that
TrE S=TrE D, we show that when the reduced dynamics of the system, for one system-environment unitary evolution
U1, is positive, but not completely positive, this implies that reduced dynamics is not linear for another
U2.
It is known that the time evolution of a subsystem from an initial state to two later times, t1, t2 (t2 > t1), are both completely positive (CP) but it is shown here that in the intermediate times between t1 and t2, in general, it need not be CP. This reveals the key to the Markov (if CP) and nonMarkov (if NCP) avataras of the intermediate dynamics. This is brought out based on A and B dynamical maps - without resorting to Master equation approach. The choice of tensor product form for the global initial state points towards the system-environment interaction dynamics as the sole cause for Markovianity/non-Markovianity. A succinct summary of the results is given in the form of a table.
Quantum systems which interact with an unknown environment cannot be described in terms of a unitary evolution on the system alone. For such evolution one can use a map from one density operator to another and use any other known information to model the system. Such maps are required to be positive (at least on their domain) — they take positive density operators to positive density operators — so as to be physically reasonable. A map [Formula: see text] which is positive but not completely positive (CP) is one which takes positive operators to positive operators, but when extended by the identity [Formula: see text], i.e. [Formula: see text] does not give a positive map for some [Formula: see text]. The map is CP if and only if the extension is positive for all [Formula: see text]. Recently some effort has been put forth to try to understand if, and/or, under what circumstances one might utilize a non-CP map. Here, after a tutorial-type introduction to maps from one density operator to another, some examples which do not fit the standard prescription (SP) for deriving a CP map are given. In cases where the physical system is constrained by some knowledge of the interaction, it is possible that the SP cannot be used directly. Our example is robust to changes in the initial and final conditions.
An ongoing theme in quantum physics is the interaction of small quantum systems with an environment. If that environment has many degrees of freedom and is weakly coupled, it can often be reasonable to treat its decohering effect on the small system using a ``memoryless,'' or Markovian description. This Colloquium shows that for many phenomena a more refined, non-Markovian, treatment is necessary. The suite of developing theoretical tools is reviewed, with which recent progress on this problem has been based.