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arXiv:1805.10689 · Physical Review A

Time-dependent Markovian quantum master equation

Roie Dann, Amikam Levy, Ronnie Kosloff

Published Nov 26, 2018• 103 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We construct a quantum Markovian master equation for a driven system coupled to a thermal bath. The derivation utilizes an explicit solution of the propagator of the driven system. This enables the validity of the master equation to be extended beyond the adiabatic limit. The nonadiabatic master equation (NAME) is derived employing the weak system-bath coupling limit. The NAME is valid when a separation of timescales exists between the bath dynamics and the external driving. In contrast to the adiabatic master equation, the NAME leads to coupled equations of motion for the population and coherence. We employ the NAME to solve the example of an open driven time-dependent harmonic oscillator. For the harmonic oscillator the NAME predicts the emergence of coherence associated with the dissipation term. As a result of the nonadiabatic driving the thermalization rate is suppressed. The solution is compared with both numerical calculations and the adiabatic master equation.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.98.052129

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We construct a quantum Markovian master equation for a driven system coupled to a thermal bath. The derivation utilizes an explicit solution of the propagator of the driven system. This enables the validity of the master equation to be extended beyond the adiabatic limit. The nonadiabatic master equation (NAME) is derived employing the weak system-bath coupling limit. The NAME is valid when a separation of timescales exists between the bath dynamics and the external driving. In contrast to the adiabatic master equation, the NAME leads to coupled equations of motion for the population and coherence. We employ the NAME to solve the example of an open driven time-dependent harmonic oscillator. For the harmonic oscillator the NAME predicts the emergence of coherence associated with the dissipation term. As a result of the nonadiabatic driving the thermalization rate is suppressed. The solution is compared with both numerical calculations and the adiabatic master equation.
We investigate the dynamic evolution and thermodynamic process of a driven quantum system immersed in a finite-temperature heat bath. A Born-Markovian quantum master equation is formally derived for the time-dependent system with discrete energy levels. This quantum master equation can be applied to situations with a broad range of driving speeds and bath temperatures and thus be used to study the finite-time quantum thermodynamics even when nonadiabatic transition and dissipation coexist. The dissipative Landau-Zener model is analyzed as an example. The population evolution and transition probability of the model reveal the importance of the competition between driving and dissipation beyond the adiabatic regime. Moreover, local maxima of irreversible entropy production occur at intermediate sweep velocity and finite temperature, which the low-dissipation model cannot describe.
We derive a Markovian master equation for a linearly driven dissipative quantum harmonic oscillator, valid for generic driving beyond the adiabatic limit. We solve this quantum master equation for arbitrary Gaussian initial states and investigate its departure from the adiabatic master equation in the regime of fast driving. We concretely examine the behavior of dynamical variables, such as position and momentum, as well as of thermodynamic quantities, such as energy and entropy. We additionally study the influence of the nonequilibrium driving on the quantum coherence of the oscillator in the instantaneous energy eigenbasis. We further analyze the approach to the adiabatic limit and the relaxation to the instantaneous steady state as a function of the driving speed.
We derive a Markovian master equation that models the evolution of systems subject to driving and control fields. Our approach combines time rescaling and weak-coupling limits for the system-environment interaction with a secular approximation. The derivation makes use of the adiabatic time-evolution operator in a manner that allows for the efficient description of strong driving, while recovering the well-known adiabatic master equation in the appropriate limit. To illustrate the effectiveness of our approach, firstly we apply it to the paradigmatic case of a two-level (qubit) system subject to a form of periodic driving that remains unsolvable using a Floquet representation and lastly we extend this scenario to the situation of two interacting qubits, the first driven while the second one directly in contact with the environment. We demonstrate the reliability and broad scope of our approach by benchmarking the solutions of the derived reduced time evolution against numerically exact simulations using tensor networks. Our results provide rigorous conditions that must be satisfied by phenomenological master equations for driven systems that do not rely on first-principles derivations.
Open Quantum Brownian Motion (OQBM) was introduced as a scaling limit of discrete-time open quantum walks. This limit defines a new class of quantum Brownian motion, which incorporates both the external and internal degrees of freedom of the Brownian particle. We consider a weakly driven Brownian particle confined in a harmonic potential and dissipatively coupled to a thermal bath. Applying the rotating wave approximation (RWA) to the system-bath interaction Hamiltonian, we derive a completely positive Born-Markov master equation for the reduced dynamics. We express the resulting master equation in the coordinate representation and, utilizing the adiabatic elimination of fast variables, derive a completely positive hybrid quantum-classical master equation that defines OQBM. We illustrate the resulting dynamics using examples of initial Gaussian and non-Gaussian distributions of the OQBM walker. Both examples reveal the emergence of Gaussian distributions in the limiting behavior of the OQBM dynamics, which closely matches that of the standard OQBM. With the help of the obtained OQBM master equation, we derive the equations for the nnn-th moments and the cumulants of the position distribution of the open Brownian walker. We subsequently solve these equations numerically for Gaussian initial distributions across various parameter regimes. Notably, we find that the third-order cumulant is nonzero, indicating that the dynamics' intrinsic generator is non-Gaussian.
A qubit--harmonic-oscillator open system coupled to thermal baths was considered and the master equation describing the evolution of the open system was deduced when the qubit transition frequency is $\ensuremath{\lesssim}0.1$ the oscillator frequency. The master equation is valid in all the qubit-oscillator state space and holds for all values of the qubit-oscillator coupling including the ultrastrong and deep strong coupling regimes. It only requires an oscillator frequency much larger than the relaxation rates. The qubit-oscillator coupling can enhance or decrease both the relaxation rates and the frequency shifts induced by the thermal baths. It was found that weak, sinusoidal qubit driving forces the qubit-oscillator open system to behave like a driven qubit whose evolution is governed by equations similar to those of the Bloch vector in the optical Bloch equations and whose transition frequency decreases with increasing qubit-oscillator coupling strength. Finally, it was shown how one can reach the adiabatic regime by using sinusoidal qubit driving with large driving frequency and the concepts of $\ensuremath{\pi}$ and $\ensuremath{\pi}/2$ pulses were generalized to manipulate transitions between dressed states.
We derive a Markovian master equation for driven open quantum systems based on the Lewis-Riesenfeld-invariants theory, which is available for arbitrary driving protocols. The role of the Lewis-Riesenfeld invariants is to help us bypass the time-ordering obstacle in expanding the propagator of the free dynamics, such that the Lindblad operators in our driven Markovian master equation can be determined easily. We also illustrate that, for the driven open quantum systems, the spontaneous emission and the thermal excitation induce the transitions between eigenstates of the Lewis-Riesenfeld invariant, but not the system Hamiltonian's. As an example, we present the driven Markovian master equation for a driven two-level system coupled to a heat reservoir. By comparing to the exactly solvable models, the availability of the driven Markovian master equation is verified. Meanwhile, the adiabatic limit and inertial limit of the driven Markovian master equation are also discussed, which result in the same Markovian master equations as those presented before in the corresponding limits.