Abstract We investigate the long-time behavior of quantum N -level systems that are coupled to a Markovian environment and subject to periodic driving. As our main result, we obtain a general algebraic condition ensuring that all solutions of a periodic quantum master equation with Lindblad form approach a unique limit cycle. Quite intuitively, this criterion requires that the dissipative terms of the master equation connect all subspaces of the system Hilbert space during an arbitrarily small fraction of the cycle time. Our results provide a natural extension of Spohn’s algebraic condition for the approach to equilibrium to systems with external driving. Moreover, our theory leads to a rigorous condition for the emergence of dissipative discrete time crystals and covers also classical, periodically modulated Markov jump processes.
Abstract We investigate the long-time behavior of quantum N -level systems that are coupled to a Markovian environment and subject to periodic driving. As our main result, we obtain a general algebraic condition ensuring that all solutions of a periodic quantum master equation with Lindblad form approach a unique limit cycle. Quite intuitively, this criterion requires that the dissipative terms of the master equation connect all subspaces of the system Hilbert space during an arbitrarily small fraction of the cycle time. Our results provide a natural extension of Spohn’s algebraic condition for the approach to equilibrium to systems with external driving. Moreover, our theory leads to a rigorous condition for the emergence of dissipative discrete time crystals and covers also classical, periodically modulated Markov jump processes.
We derive sufficient criteria that guarantee convergence of open quantum system dynamics to a unique long-time state independent of the initial conditions. We refer to this behavior as complete relaxation. Focusing on systems described by Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) master equations on finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, our approach uses only elementary mathematical arguments. For autonomous systems, we recover three previously derived relaxation criteria, which can be expressed as algebraic conditions on the Lindblad operators and the Hamiltonian entering the GKSL equation. For periodically driven systems, we obtain a new criterion involving a similar algebraic condition and a local continuity requirement on the time-dependent GKSL generator. This result implies an earlier criterion for complete relaxation formulated in Ref. [J. Phys. A 52, 43LT01 (2019)]. We also discuss implications of our approach for periodically modulated classical master equations, as well as extensions to driven systems without a periodicity constraint.
We study the dynamics of open quantum systems driven by an external time-periodic force. Combining Floquet theory and the time-convolutionless projection operator technique we derive a time-local quantum master equation which exactly takes into account the periodic driving, while treating the system-environment interaction within second order in the coupling strength without performing the Markov approximation. The resulting equation of motion for the reduced density matrix is called Floquet time-convolutionless master equation. Employing the example of the driven spin-boson system, we demonstrate that this master equation is capable of describing strong non-Markovian effects, while yielding the Floquet-Lindblad master equation in the Markovian limit. A characteristic feature of memory effects in such driven dissipative systems is the emergence of sharp peaks of the trace-distance based non-Markovianity measure as a function of the driving amplitude, which can be traced back to quasienergy crossings leading to almost decoherence-protected subspaces through a quasienergy-induced dissipative decoupling mechanism.
We investigate signatures of non-Markovianity in the dynamics of a periodically driven qubit coupled to a dissipative bosonic environment. We propagate the dynamics of the reduced density matrix of the qubit by integrating the numerically exact hierarchical equations of motion. Non-Markovian features are quantified by comparing on an equal footing the predictions from diverse and complementary approaches to quantum dissipation. In particular, we analyze the distinguishability of quantum states, the decay of the volume accessible to the qubit on the Hilbert space, the negativity of the canonical rates in the generalized Lindblad equation, and the relaxation of the memory kernels in the Nakajima-Zwanzig generalized quantum master equation. We study the effects of controlled driving on the coherent dynamics of the system. We show that a suitable external field can offset the ergodic relaxation of time-correlation functions, increase distinguishability over time, and strengthen non-Markovian effects witnessed by the canonical dissipation channels. We furthermore observe the phenomenon of eternal non-Markovianity for sufficiently small system-bath coupling and we discuss how this can be enhanced by modulating the frequency of the external drive. This work provides a broad theoretical analysis of quantum dissipation in the framework of open quantum dynamics and quantum information.
Understanding the non-Markovian dynamics of dissipative processes induced by memory effects of the environment is a fundamental subject of open quantum systems. Because of the complexity of open quantum systems, e.g., the multiple energy scales involving that of the system, the environment, and their mutual coupling, it is generally a challenging task to characterize the relationship among the parameters of the system dynamics and the reservoir spectra. For the two-level spontaneous emission model within structured environments, it was shown in a recent literature (Opt. Lett. 38, 3650) that a functional relation could be established between the asymptotically non-decaying population and the spectral density of the reservoir as the system undergoes a long-time evolution. It hence renders a distinct perspective to look into the character of long-lived quantum coherence in the corresponding non-Markovian process. This article is devoted to further investigate the phenomena of limit cycle oscillations possibly occurring in such non-Markovian dissipative systems in a long-time evolution. For a two-level system subjected to an environment with Ohmic class spectra, due to the presence of a unique bound-state mode of the system, the evolution trajectory of the given initial states will converge to a limit cycle in the Bloch space. The dependence of the radius and the location of the limit cycle on the spectral density function of the reservoir are manifested by virtue of the described functional relation. For the model subjected to a photonic crystal environment with multiple bands, our studies reveal that, owing to the presence of two or more bound states, the evolution trajectory of the system will converge to a toric curve of a paraboloid in the Bloch space and the phenomena of periodic or quasi-periodic oscillations could exhibit. While the equation of the parabolic curve is fully determined by the initial values of the state vector in the Bloch space, our results reveal that the scope of the evolution trajectory inside the toric curve is related to the spectral density of the reservoir and their quantified relation is distinctly characterized. Finally, the asymptotic dynamics of the correlations of a two-qubit system is discussed when it is subjected locally to the non-Markovian dissipative process.
Abstract The Lindblad equation, which describes Markovian quantum dynamics under dissipation, is usually derived under the weak system-bath coupling assumption. Strong system-bath coupling often leads to non-Markov evolution. The singular-coupling limit is known as an exception: it yields a Lindblad equation with an arbitrary strength of dissipation. However, the singular-coupling limit requires high-temperature limit of the bath, and hence the system ends up in a trivial infinite-temperature state, which is not desirable in the context of quantum control. In this work, it is shown that we can derive a Markovian Lindblad equation for an arbitrary strength of the system-bath coupling by considering a new scaling limit that is called the singular-driving limit, which combines the singular-coupling limit and fast periodic driving. In contrast to the standard singular-coupling limit, an interplay between dissipation and periodic driving results in a nontrivial steady state.
Time-periodic quantum systems are present all over science and technology. They have been successfully studied using Floquet theory, and a broad diversity of interesting phenomena such as coherent destruction of tunnelling, dynamical localization and creation of new phases of matter have been discovered. Furthermore, periodic driving has also been introduced as a tool for engineering novel quantum systems that have no static analogue. Besides these remarkable achievements for isolated systems, in reality, systems always interact with their surroundings. Taking the effect of the environment into account, time-periodic quantum systems have been mainly described using the Floquet-Markov approach, which consists in deriving a weak coupling master equation in the Floquet basis. In this thesis, we focus on how to overcome these standard approximations in the description of driven open quantum systems. We start by providing a general review on the topics of isolated driven systems, open quantum systems and the Floquet-Markov approach, before presenting the main results of this work. Under the effect of high-frequency driving, we provide an analytic solution to a large class of open quantum systems. Our method relies on discrete symmetries of the system-bath Hamiltonian and grants access to the time evolution operator of the full system, including bath degrees of freedom. The solution can be interpreted as the stroboscopic evolution of a family of observables under the influence of an effective static Hamiltonian. This provides a flexible simulation procedure of nontrivial Hamiltonians. The results are exemplified with the driven spin-boson model, where a coherent control of dissipation is observed. By a novel combination of Floquet theory, full counting statistics and a Markovian embedding strategy (reaction coordinate mapping), more intricate scenarios with additional driven system-environment interactions are addressed. Hereby, we can access the dynamics and thermodynamics of a periodically driven thermal machine. For the particular case where the working medium is a two-level system, we identify four different operating regimes, including a heat engine and a refrigerator. As the coupling strength is increased, their efficiency and coefficient of performance decrease and the refrigerator regime disappears. Notably, our model reproduces the setup of laser cooling of trapped ions in a specific parameter limit. Following the same combination of methods, we investigate electron pumping through a single quantum dot with periodically modulated energy and tunnelling amplitudes. In the high-frequency regime, the direction of the current can be controlled with the driving phase and a rectification effect that is exclusive to the non-Markovian character of the model is observed. In the low-frequency regime, we apply an additional transformation to view the model as three independent transport channels and observe that the coupling strength also controls the current direction. Studying charge fluctuations we validate that our model behaves as a single-electron source.