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arXiv:2309.13580 · Open Systems & Information Dynamics

Thermodynamics of Markovian Open Quantum Systems with Application to Lasers

Robert Alicki

Published Sep 1, 2023• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Göran Lindblad was one of the pioneers of what is now called quantum thermodynamics. From this vast and rapidly developing field, we have selected a sample of results concerning quantum open systems described by Markovian master equations of the Lindblad (Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan) type, which are applied to models of lasers. One can study their thermodynamics using the properties of quantum relative entropy, also introduced by Lindblad.

DOI
10.1142/s1230161223500129

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Göran Lindblad was one of the pioneers of what is now called quantum thermodynamics. From this vast and rapidly developing field, we have selected a sample of results concerning quantum open systems described by Markovian master equations of the Lindblad (Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan) type, which are applied to models of lasers. One can study their thermodynamics using the properties of quantum relative entropy, also introduced by Lindblad.
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.
This text is a short introduction to the physics of driven-dissipative many-body systems, focusing on a few selected topics. Beyond its more historical interest in the study of atomic physics and quantum optics, presently the modeling and studying of dissipative phenomena in open quantum systems are pivotal to understanding quantum hardware platforms. Although the lack of a thermodynamic potential for these out-of-equilibrium open systems makes it theoretically challenging to investigate their physics, at the same time it allows one to go beyond the thermodynamic paradigms and investigate new and exotic phenomena. We will focus on one of the simplest, yet most effective, descrip-tions of open quantum systems, namely the (Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-) Lindblad master equation. This phenomenological approach has been devel-oped to describe quantum systems that weakly interact (Born approximation) with a memoryless (Markovian) surrounding environment. However, it is often a remarkably simple and predictive tool to characterize the essential features of an open quantum system. Although many of the results derived below will ap-ply to any quantum system, we will focus in particular on bosonic/spin systems.
This text is a short introduction to the physics of driven-dissipative many-body systems, focusing on a few selected topics. Beyond its more ``historical'' interest in the study of atomic physics and quantum optics, presently the modeling and studying dissipative phenomena in open quantum systems is pivotal to understanding quantum hardware platforms. While the lack of a thermodynamic potential for these out-of-equilibrium open systems makes it theoretically challenging to investigate their physics, at the same time it allows going beyond the thermodynamic paradigms and investigating new and exotic phenomena. We will focus on one of the simplest, yet most effective, descriptions of open quantum systems, namely the (Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-) Lindblad master equation. This phenomenological approach describes quantum systems that weakly interact with their surrounding environment. Although many of the results derived below will apply to any quantum system, we will focus in particular on bosonic/spin systems.
By exploiting the peculiarities of a recently introduced formalism for describing open quantum systems (the parametric representation with environmental coherent states) we derive an equation of motion for the reduced density operator of an open quantum system that has the same structure of the celebrated Gorini–Kossakowski–Sudarshan–Lindblad equation, but holds regardless of Markovianity being assumed. The operators in our result have explicit expressions in terms of the Hamiltonian describing the interactions with the environment, and can be computed once a specific model is considered. We find that, instead of a single set of Lindblad operators, in the general (non-Markovian) case there one set of Lindblad-like operators for each and every point of a symplectic manifold associated to the environment. This intricacy disappears under some assumptions (which are related to Markovianity and the classical limit of the environment), under which it is possible to recover the usual master-equation formalism. Finally, we find such Lindblad-like operators for two different models of a qubit in a bosonic environment, and show that in the classical limit of the environment their renown master equations are recovered.
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.
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.