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arXiv:1803.09980 · Physical Review A

Time deformations of master equations

Sergey N. Filippov, Dariusz Chruściński

Published Aug 17, 2018• 19 citations

Abstract

Convolutionless and convolution master equations are the two mostly used physical descriptions of open quantum systems dynamics. We subject these equations to time deformations: local dilations and contractions of time scale. We prove that the convolutionless equation remains legitimate under any time deformation (results in a completely positive dynamical map) if and only if the original dynamics is completely positive divisible. Similarly, for a specific class of convolution master equations we show that uniform time dilations preserve positivity of the deformed map if the original map is positive divisible. These results allow witnessing different types of non-Markovian behavior: the absence of complete positivity for a deformed convolutionless master equation clearly indicates that the original dynamics is at least weakly non-Markovian; the absence of positivity for a class of time-dilated convolution master equations is a witness of essentially non-Markovian original dynamics.

DOI: 10.1103/physreva.98.022123

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Complete positivity (CP) of a quantum dynamical map (QDM) is, in general, difficult to show when its master equation (ME) does not conform to the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) form. The GKSL ME describes Markovian dynamics, comprising a unitary component with time-independent Hermitian operators and a nonunitary component with time-independent Lindblad operators and positive time-independent damping rates. Recently, non-Markovian dynamics have received growing attention, and the various types of GKSL-like MEs with time-dependent operators are widely discussed; however, rigorous discussions on their CP conditions remain limited. This paper presents conditions for QDMs to be CP, whose MEs take the GKSL-like form with arbitrary time dependence. One case considered is where its ME takes the time-local integro-differential GKSL-like form, which includes CP-divisible cases. Another case considered is where the ME is time-non-local but can be approximated to be time-local in the weak-coupling regime. As a special case of the time-non-local case, the same discussion holds for the time-convoluted GKSL-like form, which should be compared to previous studies.

We construct a large class of completely positive and trace-preserving non-Markovian dynamical maps for an open quantum system. These maps arise from a piecewise dynamics for statistical operators characterized by a continuous time evolution interrupted by jumps, randomly distributed in time and described by a quantum channel. The state of the open system is shown to obey a closed evolution equation, given by a master equation with a memory kernel and an inhomogeneous term. The non-Markovianity of the obtained dynamics is explicitly assessed studying the behavior of the distinguishability of two different initial system's states with elapsing time.

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