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arXiv:1906.04478 · AIP Advances

A short introduction to the Lindblad master equation

Daniel Manzano

Published Feb 1, 2020• 710 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The theory of open quantum systems is one of the most essential tools for the development of quantum technologies. Furthermore, the Lindblad (or Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad) master equation plays a key role as it is the most general generator of Markovian dynamics in quantum systems. In this paper, we present this equation together with its derivation and methods of resolution. The presentation tries to be as self-contained and straightforward as possible to be useful to readers with no previous knowledge of this field.

DOI
10.1063/1.5115323

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The theory of open quantum systems is one of the most essential tools for the development of quantum technologies. Furthermore, the Lindblad (or Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad) master equation plays a key role as it is the most general generator of Markovian dynamics in quantum systems. In this paper, we present this equation together with its derivation and methods of resolution. The presentation tries to be as self-contained and straightforward as possible to be useful to readers with no previous knowledge of this field.
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The year 2026 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the two seminal papers in which Gorini, Kossakowski, and Sudarshan, and independently Lindblad, characterized the generators of completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups. We revisit the conceptual and historical route leading to the Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan (GKLS) master equation and examine several of its early developments and consequences. Our aim is to show how several initially separate mathematical and physical ideas converged in the GKLS structure theorem, imme- diately opening the way to manifold consequences for the description of dissipative quantum phenomena and how that theorem, fifty years later, remains both a foundational result and an active framework for open quantum dynamics.
A longstanding tool to characterize the evolution of open Markovian quantum systems is the GKSL (Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad) master equation. However, in some cases, open quantum systems can be effectively described with non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, which have attracted great interest in the last twenty years due to a number of unconventional properties, such as the appearance of exceptional points. Here, we present a short review of these two different approaches aiming in particular to highlight their relation and illustrate different ways of connecting non-Hermitian Hamiltonian to a GKSL master equation for the full density matrix.
These notes are a short introduction to the mathematical theory of open quantum systems. They are meant to serve as an entry point into a broad research area which has applications across the quantum sciences dealing with systems subjected to external noise. The guiding idea is to let the key structures of the theory emerge from a concrete model. By working through the dissipative Jaynes-Cummings model the reader will dis- cover explicitly how irreversible dynamics arises from a unitary system-reservoir evolution. The notions of the continuous mode limit, correlation functions, spectral density appear in a natural manner and lead to the evolution equation of the open system in form of a master equation. This sets the stage for the more general analysis of completely positive, trace preserving (CPTP) maps and the study of quantum dynamical semigroups. We motivate and prove the Kraus representation theorem, the dilation theorem and the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) theorem. Working through the exercises (for which full solutions are supplied) will reinforce the ideas introduced in the main text.
An open quantum system can be described by a master equation, of which one of the most popular is the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) equation. We revisit description of driven-dissipative quantum systems focusing on the appropriate choice of the system's basis and the respective transformations. We consider the GKSL equation in different bases and calculate the dynamics for a qubit and for a qudit. An appropriate choice of the basis is a fundamental problem for theoretical consideration of open quantum systems and provides an opportunity to obtain the desired evolution in practice.