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arXiv:2603.04526

Examination of classical simulations for Heisenberg-Langevin equations for spin-1/2

Scott D. Linz, Jochen Gemmer

quant-phSubmitted Mar 4, 2026• Announced Mar 6, 2026• 0 citations
v1 · Mar 4, 2026v2 · Mar 20, 2026
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Abstract

A system of spins coupled to a bath is a traditional setup in open quantum systems. Through Heisenberg's equation, the spin dynamics can be modeled by a set of first-order differential equations. Interpreting the terms as colored noise and non-Markovian damping, one can write them as quantummechanical Heisenberg-Langevin (HL) equations. These are notoriously difficult to solve because of the high dimensionality of the Hilbert space. Classical generalized Langevin equations, involving non-Markovian damping and colored noise, are well understood and can be treated numerically with relative ease. Thus, a classical ansatz can be made by substituting quantum expectation values with classical functions. This allows the application of standard methods developed for classical stochastic dynamical systems to tackle spin dynamics. However, this approach is uncontrolled and should be benchmarked against known quantum dynamics. In this investigation, a Hamiltonian for spin dynamics is modified to obtain a setup analogous to the Weisskopf-Wigner (WW) theory of spontaneous emission, enabling a comparison of the results. This will be compared for T = 0 and with a slight adaptation in the high-temperature limit.

Comments
9 pages, 4 figures

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A system of spins coupled to a bath is a traditional setup in open quantum systems. Through Heisenberg's equation, the spin dynamics can be modeled by a set of first-order differential equations. Interpreting the terms as colored noise and non-Markovian damping, one can write them as quantummechanical Heisenberg-Langevin (HL) equations. These are notoriously difficult to solve because of the high dimensionality of the Hilbert space. Classical generalized Langevin equations, involving non-Markovian damping and colored noise, are well understood and can be treated numerically with relative ease. Thus, a classical ansatz can be made by substituting quantum expectation values with classical functions. This allows the application of standard methods developed for classical stochastic dynamical systems to tackle spin dynamics. However, this approach is uncontrolled and should be benchmarked against known quantum dynamics. In this investigation, a Hamiltonian for spin dynamics is modified to obtain a setup analogous to the Weisskopf-Wigner (WW) theory of spontaneous emission, enabling a comparison of the results. This will be compared for T = 0 and with a slight adaptation in the high-temperature limit.
One longstanding difficult problem in quantum dissipative dynamics is to solve the spin-boson model in a non-Markovian regime where a tractable systematic master equation does not exist. The spin-boson model is particularly important due to its crucial applications in quantum noise control and manipulation as well as its central role in developing quantum theories of open systems. Here we solve this important model by developing a non-Markovian quantum Langevin approach. By projecting the quantum Langevin equation onto the coherent states of the bath, we can derive a set of non-Markovian quantum Bloch equations containing no explicit noise variables. This special feature offers a tremendous advantage over the existing stochastic Schr\"odinger equations in numerical simulations. The physical significance and generality of our approach are briefly discussed.
Abstract We present a general numerical simulation method to solve non-Markovian dynamics of an open quantum system influenced by quantum Brownian motion. Based on the determined memory kernel function, this method enables the resolution of non-Markovian dynamics for a wide range of system Hamiltonians and spectral densities. The system dynamics are described by exact integro-differential operator equations without any common approximations and they are simulated in this work by definite-number equations with stochastic initial conditions. This approach ensures the applicability of mature numerical methods and maintains computational complexity that remains largely invariant, even when dealing with more complex models. The high accuracy of our simulation is evident from a comparison with the results obtained from corresponding exact master equations, underscoring the reliability and precision of our method.
We derive a ccc-number generalized Langevin equation (GLE) describing the evolution of the expectation values ${\ensuremath{\langle}{x}_{i}\ensuremath{\rangle}}_{t}$ of the atomic position operators xi{x}_{i}xi​ of an open system. The latter is coupled linearly to a harmonic bath kept at a fixed temperature. The equations of motion contain a non-Markovian friction term with the classical kernel [L. Kantorovich, Phys. Rev. B 78, 094304 (2008)] and a zero mean non-Gaussian random force with correlation functions that depend on the initial preparation of the open system. We used a density operator formalism without assuming that initially the combined system was decoupled. The only approximation made in deriving quantum GLE consists of assuming that the Hamiltonian of the open system at time ttt can be expanded up to the second order with respect to operators of atomic displacements ${u}_{i}={x}_{i}\ensuremath{-}{\ensuremath{\langle}{x}_{i}\ensuremath{\rangle}}_{t}$ in the open system around their exact atomic positions ${\ensuremath{\langle}{x}_{i}\ensuremath{\rangle}}_{t}$ (the ``harmonization'' approximation). The noise is introduced to ensure that sampling many quantum GLE trajectories yields exactly the average one. An explicit expression for the pair correlation function of the noise, consistent with the classical limit, is also proposed. Unlike the usually considered quantum operator GLE, the proposed ccc-number quantum GLE can be used in direct molecular dynamic simulations of open systems under general equilibrium or nonequilibrium conditions.
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Quantum stochastic methods based on effective wave functions form a framework for investigating the generally non-Markovian dynamics of a quantum-mechanical system coupled to a bath. They promise to be computationally superior to the master-equation approach, which is numerically expensive for large dimensions of the Hilbert space. Here, we numerically investigate the suitability of a known stochastic Schrödinger equation that is local in time to give a description of thermal relaxation and energy transport. This stochastic Schrödinger equation can be solved with a moderate numerical cost, indeed comparable to that of a Markovian system, and reproduces the dynamics of a system evolving according to a general non-Markovian master equation. After verifying that it describes thermal relaxation correctly, we apply it for the first time to the energy transport in a spin chain. We also discuss a portable algorithm for the generation of the coloured noise associated with the numerical solution of the non-Markovian dynamics.