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arXiv:1704.08702 · Physical Review A

Adding dynamical generators in quantum master equations

Jan Kołodyński, Jonatan Bohr Brask, Martí Perarnau-Llobet, Bogna Bylicka

Published Jun 26, 2018• 61 citations

Abstract

The quantum master equation is a widespread approach to describing open quantum system dynamics. In this approach, the effect of the environment on the system evolution is entirely captured by the dynamical generator, providing a compact and versatile description. However, care needs to be taken when several noise processes act simultaneously or the Hamiltonian evolution of the system is modified. Here, we show that generators can be added at the master equation level without compromising physicality only under restrictive conditions. Moreover, even when adding generators results in legitimate dynamics, this does not generally correspond to the true evolution of the system. We establish a general condition under which direct addition of dynamical generators is justified, showing that it is ensured under weak coupling and for settings where the free system Hamiltonian and all system-environment interactions commute. In all other cases, we demonstrate by counterexamples that the exact evolution derived microscopically cannot be guaranteed to coincide with the dynamics naively obtained by adding the generators.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.97.062124

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The quantum master equation is a widespread approach to describing open quantum system dynamics. In this approach, the effect of the environment on the system evolution is entirely captured by the dynamical generator, providing a compact and versatile description. However, care needs to be taken when several noise processes act simultaneously or the Hamiltonian evolution of the system is modified. Here, we show that generators can be added at the master equation level without compromising physicality only under restrictive conditions. Moreover, even when adding generators results in legitimate dynamics, this does not generally correspond to the true evolution of the system. We establish a general condition under which direct addition of dynamical generators is justified, showing that it is ensured under weak coupling and for settings where the free system Hamiltonian and all system-environment interactions commute. In all other cases, we demonstrate by counterexamples that the exact evolution derived microscopically cannot be guaranteed to coincide with the dynamics naively obtained by adding the generators.

We develop a new master equation as a unified description of the effects of both quantum noise (system-bath interaction) and classical noise on a system's dynamics, using a two-dimensional series expansion method. When quantum and classical noises are both present, their combined effect on a system's dynamics is not necessarily a simple sum of the two individual effects. Thus previous master equations for open systems and those for classical noise, even when jointly used, may not capture the full physics. Our formalism can determine whether there is interference between quantum and classical noises and will be able to capture and describe such interference if there is any (in a perturbative manner). We find that, interestingly, second-order interference between quantum and classical noises vanishes identically. This work thus also serves to justify simple additive treatments of quantum and classical noises, especially in the weak coupling regime. For a Zeeman-splitted atom in a stochastic magnetic field interacting with an optical cavity, we use the formalism developed herein to find the overall decoherence rate between the atom's energy levels.

A post-Markovian master equation has been recently proposed as a tool to describe the evolution of a system coupled to a memory-keeping environment [A. Shabani and D. A. Lidar, Phys. Rev. A 71, 020101(R) (2005)]. For a single qubit affected by appropriately chosen environmental conditions, the corresponding dynamics is always legitimate and physical. Here we extend such a situation to the case of two qubits, only one of which experiences the environmental effects. We show how, despite the innocence of such an extension, the introduction of the second qubit should be done cum grano salis to avoid consequences such as the breaking of the positivity of the associated dynamical map. This hints at the necessity of using care when adopting phenomenologically derived models for evolutions occurring outside the Markovian framework.

A scheme to simulate the evolution of a restricted set of observables of a quantum system is proposed. The set comprises the spectrum-generating algebra of the Hamiltonian. Focusing on the simulation of the restricted set allows to drastically reduce the cost of the simulation. This reduction is the result of replacing the original unitary dynamics by a special open-system evolution. This open-system evolution can be interpreted as a process of weak measurement of the distinguished observables performed on the evolving system of interest. Under the condition that the observables are ``classical'' and the Hamiltonian is moderately nonlinear, the open-system dynamics displays a large time-scale separation between the relaxation of the observables and the decoherence of a generic state. This time-scale separation allows the unitary dynamics of the observables to be efficiently simulated by the open-system dynamics on the intermediate time scale. The simulation employs unraveling of the corresponding master equations into pure-state evolutions, governed by the stochastic nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation. The stochastic pure-state evolution can be simulated efficiently using a representation of the state in the time-dependent basis of the generalized coherent states, associated with the spectrum-generating algebra.

Using a newly introduced connection between the local and non-local description of open quantum system dynamics, we investigate the relationship between these two characterisations in the case of quantum semi-Markov processes. This class of quantum evolutions, which is a direct generalisation of the corresponding classical concept, guarantees mathematically well-defined master equations, while accounting for a wide range of phenomena, possibly in the non-Markovian regime. In particular, we analyse the emergence of a dephasing term when moving from one type of master equation to the other, by means of several examples. We also investigate the corresponding Redfield-like approximated dynamics, which are obtained after a coarse graining in time. Relying on general properties of the associated classical random process, we conclude that such an approximation always leads to a Markovian evolution for the considered class of dynamics.

Master equations describe the quantum dynamics of open systems interacting with an environment. They play an increasingly important role in understanding the emergence of semiclassical behavior and the generation of entropy, both being related to quantum decoherence. Presently we derive the exact master equation for a homogeneous scalar Higgs or inflaton like field coupled to an environment field represented by an infinite set of harmonic oscillators. Our aim is to demonstrate a derivation directly from the path integral representation of the density matrix propagator. Applications and generalizations of this result are discussed.