We provide a detailed analysis of the quantum diffusive Stochastic Master Equation~(SME) for qubit/cavity systems with dispersive coupling, incorporating classical input signals and output signals (measurement outcomes via homodyne/heterodyne detection). We show that the dynamics of the qubit/cavity density operator converges exponentially towards a slow invariant manifold. This manifold is parameterized by the density operator of a \emph{fictitious} qubit governed by a quantum SME that incorporates the classical input/output signals while preserving complete positivity and trace. The reduced cavity (resp.\ qubit) operator, obtained by partial trace over the qubit (resp.\ cavity), is then expressed as a time-varying deterministic quantum channel acting on the fictitious-qubit density operator. This formulation avoids the non-Markovian descriptions---with temporarily negative dephasing rates or detection efficiencies exceeding one---that appear in several publications. Extensions are considered in which the qubit is replaced by a qudit dispersively coupled to an arbitrary set of cavity modes driven by collective classical input/output signals.
We provide a detailed analysis of the quantum diffusive Stochastic Master Equation~(SME) for qubit/cavity systems with dispersive coupling, incorporating classical input signals and output signals (measurement outcomes via homodyne/heterodyne detection). We show that the dynamics of the qubit/cavity density operator converges exponentially towards a slow invariant manifold. This manifold is parameterized by the density operator of a \emph{fictitious} qubit governed by a quantum SME that incorporates the classical input/output signals while preserving complete positivity and trace. The reduced cavity (resp.\ qubit) operator, obtained by partial trace over the qubit (resp.\ cavity), is then expressed as a time-varying deterministic quantum channel acting on the fictitious-qubit density operator. This formulation avoids the non-Markovian descriptions---with temporarily negative dephasing rates or detection efficiencies exceeding one---that appear in several publications. Extensions are considered in which the qubit is replaced by a qudit dispersively coupled to an arbitrary set of cavity modes driven by collective classical input/output signals.
Continuous weak measurements of quantum systems are of great relevance in quantum foundations and applications. They can be achieved by probing the quantum system of interest by repeatedly measuring an auxiliary system weakly coupled to it. Here we study two qubits coupled in different points to a common one-dimensional electromagnetic field and simultaneously monitored in the right- and left-propagating output channels by homodyne detection. Using a collision-model description, we derive an analytical Stochastic Master Equation (SME) governing the resulting diffusive quantum trajectories, including the interference between the two measurement channels. For nonlinear functions of the quantum state, such as entropies, averages over quantum trajectories generally differ from the corresponding quantities evaluated on the unconditional state. Through this mechanism, we show that continuous monitoring generates entanglement, absent in the unconditional dynamics, and enhances quantum magic in the qubit pair during the decay. Both resources can be tuned through the optical phase accumulated between the qubits and the phases of homodyne local oscillators. Our results establish continuous homodyne monitoring of multiple emitters as a tunable mechanism for generating quantum resources.
We propose a self-contained and accessible derivation of an exact formula for the n -point correlation functions of the signal measured when continuously observing a quantum system. The expression depends on the initial quantum state and on the Stochastic Master Equation (SME) governing the dynamics. This derivation applies to both jump and diffusive evolutions and takes into account common imperfections of realistic measurement devices. We show how these correlations can be efficiently computed numerically for commonly filtered and integrated signals available in practice.
We analyze the continuous monitoring of a qudit coupled to a cavity using both phase-preserving and phase-sensitive amplification. The quantum trajectories of the system are described by a stochastic master equation, for which we derive the appropriate Lindblad operators. The measurement back-action causes spiraling in the state coordinates during collapse, which increases as the system levels become less distinguishable. We discuss two examples: a two-level system and an N-dimensional system and meter with rotational symmetry in the quadrature space. We also provide a comparison of the effects of phase-preserving and phase-sensitive detection on the master equation and show that the average behavior is the same in both cases, but individual trajectories collapse at different rates depending on the measurement axis in the quadrature plane.
In the last chapter, we dealt with the wide class of physical operations that preserve the Gaussian character of the initial state, treating them as discrete transformations. Here, we describe what could loosely be considered the continuous-time version of such transformations. This chapter is intended to provide the reader with the tools to describe a wide range of notable quantum dynamics, with a very broad applicative scope. After a note on the action of linear and quadratic Hamiltonians, whose description follows directly from the theory of Gaussian states presented in Chapter 3 but was not explicitly clarified so far, we shall address systems linearly coupled to a reservoir of modes that are delta-correlated in time (a situation commonly referred to as ‘white noise’), and thus give rise to Markovian dynamics which we shall refer to as ‘diffusive’ for reasons that will be made clear in due time. Our story will commence with a derivation of the Gaussian dynamics resulting from such an environmental coupling, in the form of dynamical equations for the first and second statistical moments. Besides their interest per se , the latter will be instrumental in obtaining an unconventional derivation of the master equations that govern general, not necessarily Gaussian, quantum states under the same conditions. The corresponding quantum Langevin equations for the canonical operators in the Heisenberg picture will also be derived. Next, we will turn our attention to the study of the system's dynamics that result from the measurement of the environment. This is a topic with a longstanding tradition in quantum mechanics, grounded in the formalism of quantum stochastic calculus that emerged within the mathematical physics community as early as the seventies, and then re-introduced as the quantum trajectories approach in quantum optics almost twenty years later. The ‘weak’ POVMs resulting from observing a weakly coupled environment (as opposed to ‘strong’, projective measurements), carried out continuously in time (a prescription customarily subsumed by the term ‘monitoring’), leads to a stochastic dynamics for the system, where the randomness of the measurement outcomes is compactly and most elegantly represented by infinitesimal stochastic increments, giving rise to continuous but not differentiable quantum dynamics. Existing approaches to this subject tend to be quite impervious to the uninitiated. In the quantum optics literature, this is largely due to the technicalities involved in incorporating the discontinuous update of the quantum state prescribed by the von Neumann postulate. More mathematically oriented treatments have instead typically preferred an algebraic approach where the usual difficulty of describing measurements in the Heisenberg picture is compounded by the adoption of a rather abstract hierarchy of filters, in part inspired by classical control theory, to describe different possible updates of the quantum state. This state of affairs is further complicated by the added difficulties that come with the necessary introduction of some form of quantum stochastic calculus. Our approach to monitoring will therefore take a different route. Like in our derivation of diffusion and master equations, we shall keep restricting to linear couplings with a white noise environment, forfeiting full generality This situation is well modelled by the so called input-output formalism, whose physical origin will be discussed in detail in Chapter 9 , which approximates reliably, among other instances, the interaction between internal resonating modes and electromagnetic radiation leaking in and out of an optical cavity. First, we shall introduce stochastic Wiener increments and the Itô rule, which will arise naturally from the identification of the continuum field's modes subject to monitoring. We shall deliberately keep our arsenal of stochastic methods to these bare essentials, sacrificing to some extent both depth and generality, but still providing the reader with a powerful and seminal demonstration of the formalism. We shall then restrict to Gaussian general-dyne detections and apply the exact formalism developed in the previous chapter to the continuous filtering of the system's state conditioned by such measurements' outcomes. Next, as in our derivation of the unconditional master equations, we shall use the Gaussian dynamics as a key to unlock the full stochastic master equations governing general states. Hence, we will build on the quantum theory of filtering in the Gaussian regime to derive dynamical equations for linear feedback control and also apply our theoretical tools to the enhanced production of squeezing. Finally, we will turn to the closely related paradigm of coherent feedback, where environmental modes do not undergo measurements but are fed back to interact coherently with the system, see in detail how it modifies Gaussian diffusive dynamics and assess its potential for control by reconsidering the production of squeezing assisted by interferometric coherent feedback loops.
We analytically investigate the fidelity dynamics of a Jaynes--Cummings qubit coupled to a single-mode cavity in the presence of stochastic fluctuations of the qubit--cavity coupling. Such fluctuations naturally arise in cavity- and circuit-QED platforms due to fabrication imperfections, control-field noise, mechanical vibrations, and environmental disturbances. Since the qubit--cavity coupling governs the rate of coherent energy and information exchange, understanding the effects of its fluctuations is essential for assessing the performance of quantum communication, quantum sensing, and quantum information-processing protocols. We consider both Gaussian white noise and Ornstein--Uhlenbeck noise with finite correlation time as models for the coupling fluctuations. Exploiting the closed dynamics within each excitation manifold, we derive exact analytical expressions for the noise-averaged density matrix and the fidelity relative to the ideal noiseless evolution. We show that the fidelity is determined by a single decoherence factor governed by the integrated noise correlation function, establishing a direct connection between microscopic coupling fluctuations and macroscopic coherence loss. In the white-noise limit, the fidelity decays exponentially, whereas finite noise correlation times produce nonexponential decay and slower coherence loss. We further show that the crossover between Markovian-like and non-Markovian regimes is controlled by the ratio of the noise correlation rate to the coherent coupling strength, and that decoherence increases with photon number because of the enhanced effective qubit--cavity coupling. These results provide a unified analytical framework for quantifying decoherence induced by stochastic coupling fluctuations and for evaluating the robustness of cavity-QED protocols under correlated noise.
Positivity preservation is naturally guaranteed in exact non-Markovian master equations for open quantum system dynamics. However, in many approximated non-Markovian master equations, the positivity of the reduced density matrix is not guaranteed. In this paper we provide a general class of time-local, perturbative, and positivity-preserving non-Markovian master equations generated from stochastic Schr\"odinger equations, particularly quantum-state-diffusion equations. Our method has an expanded range of applicability for accommodating a variety of non-Markovian environments. We show the positivity-preserving master equation for a three-level system coupled to a dissipative bosonic environment as a particular example to exemplify our general approach. We illustrate the numerical simulations with an analysis explaining why the previous approximated non-Markovian master equations cannot guarantee positivity. Our work provides a consistent master equation for studying the non-Markovian dynamics in ultrafast quantum processes and strong-coupling systems.