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arXiv:2004.03741 · Physical Review A

Measuring non-Markovianity via incoherent mixing with Markovian dynamics

Dario De Santis, Vittorio Giovannetti

Published Jan 21, 2021• 7 citations
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Abstract

We introduce a measure of non-Markovianity based on the minimal amount of extra Markovian noise we have to add to the process via incoherent mixing, in order to make the resulting transformation Markovian too at all times. We show how to evaluate this measure by considering the set of depolarizing evolutions in arbitrary dimension and the set of dephasing evolutions for qubits.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.103.012218

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We introduce a measure of non-Markovianity based on the minimal amount of extra Markovian noise we have to add to the process via incoherent mixing, in order to make the resulting transformation Markovian too at all times. We show how to evaluate this measure by considering the set of depolarizing evolutions in arbitrary dimension and the set of dephasing evolutions for qubits.
We construct measures for the non-Markovianity of quantum evolution with a physically meaningful interpretation. We first provide a general setting in the framework of channel capacities and propose two families of meaningful quantitative measures, based on the largest revival of a channel capacity, avoiding some drawbacks of other non-Markovianity measures. We relate the proposed measures to the task of information screening. This shows that the non-Markovianity of a quantum process may be used as a resource. Under these considerations, we analyze two paradigmatic examples, a qubit in a quantum environment with classically mixed dynamics and the Jaynes-Cummings model.
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A profound understanding of decoherence and dissipation in quantum dynamics is crucial for the realistic modeling of the evolution of quantum systems. In open quantum dynamics one distinguishes between a memoryless, so-called Markovian evolution and dynamics incorporating memory effects, termed non-Markovian. In this work we study how prevalent memory effects are in the set of all such dynamics. We thus investigate how often a Markovian description is applicable. This question is approached by investigating randomly generated two-step qubit dynamics with respect to different concepts and witnesses of non-Markovianity. We observe that almost all dynamics are non-Markovian, and only a small (yet finite) fraction is Markovian. Furthermore, we study how this proportion changes when considering certain subclasses such as lower rank or mixed-unitary dynamics. Importantly, our results shed light on the relative ratios of -- and interrelations between -- the sets of dynamics that are non-Markovian with respect to different criteria. Finally, we investigate the fraction of dynamics in which the memory effects are necessarily of quantum nature and establish a connection between two recently developed concepts that characterize the quantumness of memory in non-Markovian dynamics.
We study the non-Markovianity of open qubit systems using the measure proposed by Breuer, Laine and Piilo [ Phys. Rev. Lett. 103 210401 (2009) ]. We find that for the three types of quantum noises, amplitude-damping, dephasing and depolarizing noises, there exist some non-Markovian time intervals whose distribution is independent of the selection of the pair of initial states. Therefore, the maximization in the definition of measure can be actually removed without influencing the detection of non-Markovianity.
The quantification and characterization of non-Markovian dynamics in quantum systems is an essential endeavor both for the theory of open quantum systems and for a deeper understanding of the effects of non-Markovian noise on quantum technologies. Here, we introduce the robustness of non-Markovianity, an operationally-motivated, optimization-free measure that quantifies the minimum amount of Markovian noise that can be mixed with a non-Markovian evolution before it becomes Markovian. We show that this quantity is a bonafide non-Markovianity measure, since it is faithful, convex, and monotonic under composition with Markovian channels. A two-fold operational interpretation of this measure is provided, with the robustness measure quantifying an advantage in both a state discrimination and a channel discrimination task. Furthermore, we provide a closed-form analytical expression for this measure and show that, quite remarkably, the robustness measure is exactly equal to half the Rivas-Huelga-Plenio (RHP) measure [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{105}, 050403 (2010)]. As a result, we provide a direct operational meaning to the RHP measure while endowing the robustness measure with the physical characterizations of the RHP measure.
The non-Markovian depolarizing channel is explored from the perspective of understanding its non-Markovian behavior as well as the occurrence of singularities. The study brings together the various ways to identify and quantify non-Markovianity. This includes dynamical techniques such as quantum information backflow witness, Breuer-Laine-Piilo, Rivas-Huelga-Plenio, and Hall-Cresser-Li-Andersson measures. In addition, geometrical visualization of non-Markovian effects is presented using the variation in the volume of accessible states during dynamical evolution. Further, a trajectory-based visualization of the dynamical map within the parameter space is presented. The trajectories traced during evolution demonstrate the loss of CP divisibility and the emergence of non-Markovianity under systematic variations of the system parameters. The effects of increasing system dimensions and qubit numbers on singularity and non-Markovianity are presented, with an extension of characterization techniques to higher-dimensional systems.