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arXiv:2403.18907 · Physical Review Research

Open system dynamics in interacting quantum field theories

Brenden Bowen, Nishant Agarwal, Archana Kamal

Published Oct 14, 2025• 8 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

A quantum system that interacts with an environment generally undergoes nonunitary evolution described by a non-Markovian or Markovian master equation. In this paper, we construct the non-Markovian Redfield master equation for a quantum scalar field that interacts with a second field through a bilinear or nonlinear interaction on a Minkowski background. We use the resulting master equation to set up coupled differential equations that can be solved to obtain the equal-time two-point function of the system field. We show how the equations simplify under various approximations including the Markovian limit and argue that the Redfield equation-based solution provides a perturbative resummation to the standard second-order Dyson series result. For the bilinear interaction, we explicitly show that the Redfield solution is closer to the exact solution compared to the perturbation theory-based one. Further, the environment correlation function is oscillatory and nondecaying in this case, making the Markovian master equation a poor approximation. For the nonlinear interaction, on the other hand, the environment correlation function is sharply peaked and the Redfield solution matches that obtained using a Markovian master equation in the late-time limit.

DOI
10.1103/kjph-9z8l

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A quantum system that interacts with an environment generally undergoes nonunitary evolution described by a non-Markovian or Markovian master equation. In this paper, we construct the non-Markovian Redfield master equation for a quantum scalar field that interacts with a second field through a bilinear or nonlinear interaction on a Minkowski background. We use the resulting master equation to set up coupled differential equations that can be solved to obtain the equal-time two-point function of the system field. We show how the equations simplify under various approximations including the Markovian limit and argue that the Redfield equation-based solution provides a perturbative resummation to the standard second-order Dyson series result. For the bilinear interaction, we explicitly show that the Redfield solution is closer to the exact solution compared to the perturbation theory-based one. Further, the environment correlation function is oscillatory and nondecaying in this case, making the Markovian master equation a poor approximation. For the nonlinear interaction, on the other hand, the environment correlation function is sharply peaked and the Redfield solution matches that obtained using a Markovian master equation in the late-time limit.
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An extremely useful evolution equation that allows systematically calculating the two-time correlation functions (CF's) of system operators for non-Markovian open (dissipative) quantum systems is derived. The derivation is based on perturbative quantum master equation approach, so non-Markovian open quantum system models that are not exactly solvable can use our derived evolution equation to easily obtain their two-time CF's of system operators, valid to second order in the system-environment interaction. Since the form and nature of the Hamiltonian are not specified in our derived evolution equation, our evolution equation is applicable for bosonic and/or fermionic environments and can be applied to a wide range of system-environment models with any factorized (separable) system-environment initial states (pure or mixed). When applied to a general model of a system coupled to a finite-temperature bosonic environment with a system coupling operator L in the system-environment interaction Hamiltonian, the resultant evolution equation is valid for both L = L(†) and L ≠ L(†) cases, in contrast to those evolution equations valid only for L = L(†) case in the literature. The derived equation that generalizes the quantum regression theorem (QRT) to the non-Markovian case will have broad applications in many different branches of physics. We then give conditions on which the QRT holds in the weak system-environment coupling case and apply the derived evolution equation to a problem of a two-level system (atom) coupled to the finite-temperature bosonic environment (electromagnetic fields) with L ≠ L(†).
We study non-Markovian dynamics of an open quantum system system interacting with a nonstationary squeezed bosonic reservoir. We derive exact and approximate descriptions for the open system dynamics. Focusing on the spin boson model, we compare exact dynamics with Redfield theory and a quantum optical master equation for both short and long time dynamics and in non-Markovian and Markov regimes. The squeezing of the bath results in asymptotic oscillations in the stationary state, which are captured faithfully by the Redfield master equation in the case of weak coupling. Furthermore, we find that the bath squeezing direction modifies the effective system-environment coupling strength and, thus, the strength of the dissipation.
Data of the numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation of a system containing one spin-1/2 particle interacting with a bath of up to 32 spin-1/2 particles is used to construct a Markovian quantum master equation describing the dynamics of the system spin. The procedure of obtaining this quantum master equation, which takes the form of a Bloch equation with time-independent coefficients, accounts for all non-Markovian effects inasmuch the general structure of the quantum master equation allows. Our simulation results show that, with a few rather exotic exceptions, the Bloch-type equation with time-independent coefficients provides a simple and accurate description of the dynamics of a spin-1/2 particle in contact with a thermal bath. A calculation of the coefficients that appear in the Redfield master equation in the Markovian limit shows that this perturbatively derived equation quantitatively differs from the numerically estimated Markovian master equation, the results of which agree very well with the solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.
Abstract Following the ideas N. N. Bogoliubov used to derive the classical and quantum nonlinear kinetic equations, we derive the Redfield quantum linear master equation, which is widely used in the theory of open quantum systems. This method allows one to calculate the joint state of a system and a reservoir at every instant of time, as well as to obtain quantum master equations as autonomous differential equations in an arbitrary order of perturbation theory. We prove that under certain conditions the expressions for the corrections of all orders are well defined. We also discuss the question of whether the quantum dynamics described by the derived quantum master equations is Markovian.
We present the Born-Markov approximated Redfield quantum master equation (RQME) description for an open system of noninteracting particles (bosons or fermions) on an arbitrary lattice of NNN sites in any dimension and weakly connected to multiple reservoirs at different temperatures and chemical potentials. The RQME can be reduced to the Lindblad equation, of various forms, by making further approximations. By studying the N=2N=2N=2 case, we show that RQME gives results which agree with exact analytical results for steady-state properties and with exact numerics for time-dependent properties over a wide range of parameters. In comparison, the Lindblad equations have a limited domain of validity in nonequilibrium. We conclude that it is indeed justified to use microscopically derived full RQME to go beyond the limitations of Lindblad equations in out-of-equilibrium systems. We also derive closed-form analytical results for out-of-equilibrium time dynamics of two-point correlation functions. These results explicitly show the approach to steady state and thermalization. These results are experimentally relevant for cold atoms, cavity QED, and far-from-equilibrium quantum dot experiments.