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arXiv:2603.22686 · Physica A Statistical Mechanics and its Applications

Deterministic quantum master equation for non-Markovian signal processing

Guilherme de Sousa, Diogo O. Soares-Pinto

quant-phSubmitted Mar 24, 2026• Announced Mar 25, 2026• 0 citations• Revised Jul 21, 2026 (v2)
v1 · Mar 24, 2026v2 · Jul 21, 2026
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Abstract

In this work, we derive a deterministic master equation to model a general, possibly non-Markovian, feedback. The master equation describes a system with a general evolution and measurement operation, with feedback being applied in terms of signal processing. The feedback signal has an arbitrary structure with dimensionality that indicates the degree of non-Markovianity of the information processing. We present examples to illustrate how such a master equation can be used to model systems with memory feedback and non-trivial frequency dependence.

Journal reference
Physica A 699, 131883 (2026)
DOI
10.1016/j.physa.2026.131883

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In this work, we derive a deterministic master equation to model a general, possibly non-Markovian, feedback. The master equation describes a system with a general evolution and measurement operation, with feedback being applied in terms of signal processing. The feedback signal has an arbitrary structure with dimensionality that indicates the degree of non-Markovianity of the information processing. We present examples to illustrate how such a master equation can be used to model systems with memory feedback and non-trivial frequency dependence.
In this paper, we derive a general master equation for continuous feedback based on arbitrary linear signals. This result is an extension of the Quantum Fokker-Planck Master Equation derived by Annby-Andersson et al (Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 050401) to the case where the experiment has a general filtering structure. The filtering operation can include delayed information, memory effects, and non-Markovian signal processing. Using this general master equation, we derive analytical results for the ground state cooling of a quantum harmonic oscillator. We compared our results with those derived by De Sousa et al (Phys. Rev. E 111, 014152). Our framework aims to capture more realistic situations, to allow experiments to be better modeled, and to study non-Markovian effects in the spectral properties of the measurement signal.
Quantum Markov models have been successfully used to accurately model various physical quantum systems in fields such as quantum optics, optomechanics and superconducting circuits and they provide the basis for (measurement-based) quantum feedback control. However, the quantum Markov assumption is a strong one and it is not expected to hold for general quantum systems of interest. The projection operator approach is one approach that has been developed to model non-Markovian quantum systems by considering its embedding in a larger Markovian quantum system, but mainly in the context of quantum master equations for the dynamics of the unmonitored reduced quantum state of a quantum system. This approach was recently adapted for continuously measured non-Markovian quantum systems, which enables open-loop control but did not yet consider the presence of feedback of the stochastic measurement record, deriving non-Markovian SDEs for the evolution of the projected state of the Markovian embedding. This paper generalizes these stochastic equations to the setting of stochastic feedback based on the continuous-measurement record and shows that the equations take the same form but that previously deterministic terms become stochastic ones which depend on the measurement record, as would be intuitively expected. The stochastic equations are obtained for a generalized class of measurements that includes continuous (possibly adaptive) homodyne and photon counting measurements.
Quantum Markov models are employed ubiqui-tously in quantum physics and in quantum information theory due to their relative simplicity and analytical tractability. In particular, these models are known to give accurate approxi-mations for a wide range of quantum optical and meso scopic systems. However, in general, the validity of the Markov approximation entails assumptions regarding properties of the system of interest and its environment, which may not be satisfied or accurate in arbitrary physical systems. Therefore, developing useful modelling tools for general non-Markovian quantum systems for which the Markov approximation is inappropriate or deficient is an undertaking of significant importance. This work considers non-Markovian principal quantum systems that can be embedded in a larger Markovian quantum system with one or more compound baths consisting of an auxiliary quantum system and a quantum white noise field, and derives a set of coupled stochastic and quantum master equations for embedded non-Markovian quantum systems. The case of a purely Hamiltonian coupling between the principal and auxiliary systems as a closed system without coupling to white noises is included as a special case. The results are expected to be of interest for (open-loop and feedback) control of continuous-time non-Markovian systems and studying reduced models for numerical simulation of such systems. They may also shed more light on the general structure of continuous-time non-Markovian quantum systems.
We study and compare the sensitivity of multiple non-Markovianity indicators for a qubit subjected to general phase-covariant noise. For each of the indicators, we derive analytical conditions to detect the dynamics as non-Markovian. We present these conditions as relations between the time-dependent decay rates for the general open system dynamics and its commutative and unital subclasses. These relations tell directly if the dynamics is non-Markovian w.r.t. each indicator, without the need to explicitly derive and specify the analytic form of the time-dependent coefficients. Moreover, with a shift in perspective, we show that if one assumes only the general form of the master equation, measuring the non-Markovianity indicators gives us directly non-trivial information on the relations between the unknown decay rates.
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.
Measurement and feedback control are essential features of quantum science, with applications ranging from quantum technology protocols to information-to-work conversion in quantum thermodynamics. Theoretical descriptions of feedback control are typically given in terms of stochastic equations requiring numerical solutions, or are limited to linear feedback protocols. Here we present a formalism for continuous quantum measurement and feedback, both linear and nonlinear. Our main result is a quantum Fokker-Planck master equation describing the joint dynamics of a quantum system and a detector with finite bandwidth. For fast measurements, we derive a Markovian master equation for the system alone, amenable to analytical treatment. We illustrate our formalism by investigating two basic information engines, one quantum and one classical.