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arXiv:1704.06204 · Quantum

Tomographically reconstructed master equations for any open quantum dynamics

Felix A. Pollock, Kavan Kishore Modi

Published Jul 11, 2018• 56 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Memory effects in open quantum dynamics are often incorporated in the equation of motion through a superoperator known as the memory kernel, which encodes how past states affect future dynamics. However, the usual prescription for determining the memory kernel requires information about the underlying system-environment dynamics. Here, by deriving the transfer tensor method from first principles, we show how a memory kernel master equation, for any quantum process, can be entirely expressed in terms of a family of completely positive dynamical maps. These can be reconstructed through quantum process tomography on the system alone, either experimentally or numerically, and the resulting equation of motion is equivalent to a generalised Nakajima-Zwanzig equation. For experimental settings, we give a full prescription for the reconstruction procedure, rendering the memory kernel operational. When simulation of an open system is the goal, we show how our procedure yields a considerable advantage for numerically calculating dynamics, even when the system is arbitrarily periodically (or transiently) driven or initially correlated with its environment. Namely, we show that the long time dynamics can be efficiently obtained from a set of reconstructed maps over a much shorter time.

DOI
10.22331/q-2018-07-11-76

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Memory effects in open quantum dynamics are often incorporated in the equation of motion through a superoperator known as the memory kernel, which encodes how past states affect future dynamics. However, the usual prescription for determining the memory kernel requires information about the underlying system-environment dynamics. Here, by deriving the transfer tensor method from first principles, we show how a memory kernel master equation, for any quantum process, can be entirely expressed in terms of a family of completely positive dynamical maps. These can be reconstructed through quantum process tomography on the system alone, either experimentally or numerically, and the resulting equation of motion is equivalent to a generalised Nakajima-Zwanzig equation. For experimental settings, we give a full prescription for the reconstruction procedure, rendering the memory kernel operational. When simulation of an open system is the goal, we show how our procedure yields a considerable advantage for numerically calculating dynamics, even when the system is arbitrarily periodically (or transiently) driven or initially correlated with its environment. Namely, we show that the long time dynamics can be efficiently obtained from a set of reconstructed maps over a much shorter time.
The initial stages of the evolution of an open quantum system encode the key information of its underlying dynamical correlations, which in turn can predict the trajectory at later stages. We propose a general approach based on non-Markovian dynamical maps to extract this information from the initial trajectories and compress it into non-Markovian transfer tensors. Assuming time-translational invariance, the tensors can be used to accurately and efficiently propagate the state of the system to arbitrarily long time scales. The non-Markovian transfer tensor method (TTM) demonstrates the coherent-to-incoherent transition as a function of the strength of quantum dissipation and predicts the noncanonical equilibrium distribution due to the system-bath entanglement. TTM is equivalent to solving the Nakajima-Zwanzig equation and, therefore, can be used to reconstruct the dynamical operators (the system Hamiltonian and memory kernel) from quantum trajectories obtained in simulations or experiments. The concept underlying the approach can be generalized to physical observables with the goal of learning and manipulating the trajectories of an open quantum system.
The transfer tensor method is a versatile tool for analyzing and propagating general open quantum systems. It captures in a compact manner all memory effects in a non-Markovian system through a straightforward transformation of a set of dynamical maps. Transfer tensors provide the exact convolutional propagator associated with a given time discretization over the past evolution of an open quantum system. Here we show that, for any finite time discretization, the memory kernel of the Nakajima Zwanzig equation deviates from the exact transfer tensors, although both converge in the continuous-time limit, as expected. We examine this behaviour in the context of an analytically solvable model: a two level atom resonant with a lossy cavity in the Jaynes Cummings limit. The atomic dynamics separate into two decoupled degrees of freedom -- the coherence and the population inversion. We derive exact expressions for the dynamical map, the transfer tensors and the memory kernel governing the coherence, and we relate them to their counterparts for the population inversion. As a function of the ratio between the cavity loss rate and the atom-cavity coupling strength, we identify regions of enhanced non-Markovianity in which the system can be described as fully Markovian for certain time-step choices.
The Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized quantum master equation provides a general, and formally exact, prescription for simulating the reduced dynamics of a quantum system coupled to a quantum bath. In this equation, the memory kernel accounts for the influence of the bath on the system's dynamics, and the inhomogeneous term accounts for initial system-bath correlations. In this paper, we propose a new approach for calculating the memory kernel and inhomogeneous term for arbitrary initial state and system-bath coupling. The memory kernel and inhomogeneous term are obtained by numerically solving a single inhomogeneous Volterra equation of the second kind for each. The new approach can accommodate a very wide range of projection operators, and requires projection-free two-time correlation functions as input. An application to the case of a two-state system with diagonal coupling to an arbitrary bath is described in detail. Finally, the utility and self-consistency of the formalism are demonstrated by an explicit calculation on a spin-boson model.
We extend the Nakajima-Zwanzig projection operator technique to the determination of multitime correlation functions of open quantum systems. The correlation functions are expressed in terms of certain multitime homogeneous and inhomogeneous memory kernels for which suitable equations of motion are derived. We show that under the condition of finite memory times, these equations can be used to determine the memory kernels by employing an exact stochastic unraveling of the full system-environment dynamics. The approach thus allows us to combine exact stochastic methods, feasible for short times, with long-time master equation simulations. The applicability of the method is demonstrated by numerical simulations of two-dimensional spectra for a donor-acceptor model, and by comparison of the results with those obtained from the reduced hierarchy equations of motion. We further show that the formalism is also applicable to the time evolution of a periodically driven two-level system initially in equilibrium with its environment.
We present a projection-based, stability-preserving methodology for computing time correlation functions in open quantum systems governed by generalized quantum master equations with non-Markovian effects. Building upon the memory kernel coupling theory framework, our approach transforms the memory kernel hierarchy into a system of coupled linear differential equations through Mori-Zwanzig projection, followed by spectral projection onto stable eigenmodes to ensure numerical stability. By systematically eliminating unstable modes while preserving the physically relevant dynamics, our method guaranties long-time convergence without introducing artificial damping or ad hoc modifications. The theoretical framework maintains mathematical rigor through orthogonal projection operators and spectral decomposition. Benchmark calculations on the spin-boson model show excellent agreement with exact hierarchical equations of motion results while achieving significant computational efficiency. This approach provides a versatile and reliable framework for simulating non-Markovian dynamics in complex systems.
Efficient simulations of the dynamics of open systems is of wide importance for quantum science and technology. Here, we introduce a generalization of the transfer-tensor, or discrete-time memory kernel, formalism to multitime measurement scenarios. The transfer-tensor method sets out to compute the state of an open few-body quantum system at long times, given that only short-time system trajectories are available. Here, we show that the transfer-tensor method can be extended to processes which include multiple interrogations (e.g., measurements) of the open system dynamics as it evolves, allowing us to propagate high-order short-time correlation functions to later times, without further recourse to the underlying system-environment evolution. Our approach exploits the process-tensor description of open quantum processes to represent and propagate the dynamics in terms of an object from which any multitime correlation can be extracted. As an illustration of the utility of the method, we study the buildup of system-environment correlations in the paradigmatic spin-boson model and compute steady-state emission spectra, taking fully into account system-environment correlations present in the steady state.