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The Journal of Chemical Physics

Memory kernel for a multilevel quantum system driven by colored thermal noise

Santiago Velasco, Juan A. White, Antonio Calvo Hernández

Published Dec 15, 1990• 4 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The memory kernel appearing in a non-Markovian population equation for a multilevel quantum system stochastically coupled to a colored Gaussian bath is calculated on the basis of a fully quantum-mechanical treatment to construct the time autocorrelation function (TAF) associated to the system–bath interaction Hamiltonian. The limiting cases of high and low temperatures and white noise bath are also analyzed. These examples allow us to discuss in a very simple way the dependence of the memory kernel on the Bohr frequencies of the system, the intensity of the system–bath interaction, its correlation time, and the bath temperature. In particular, it is shown that a true Markovian population equation is only achieved at high temperatures with a bath correlation time much shorter than the relaxation process characteristic time.

DOI
10.1063/1.459232

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The memory kernel appearing in a non-Markovian population equation for a multilevel quantum system stochastically coupled to a colored Gaussian bath is calculated on the basis of a fully quantum-mechanical treatment to construct the time autocorrelation function (TAF) associated to the system–bath interaction Hamiltonian. The limiting cases of high and low temperatures and white noise bath are also analyzed. These examples allow us to discuss in a very simple way the dependence of the memory kernel on the Bohr frequencies of the system, the intensity of the system–bath interaction, its correlation time, and the bath temperature. In particular, it is shown that a true Markovian population equation is only achieved at high temperatures with a bath correlation time much shorter than the relaxation process characteristic time.
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The influence of a finite bath correlation time and the bath temperature on the onset of a non-Markovian behaviour in the relaxation of a harmonic oscillator linearly coupled to a coloured thermal bath is analysed. A fully quantum mechanical treatment of the time autocorrelation function of the oscillator-bath interaction is made. Special attention is paid to the temperature dependence. In the low-temperature regime a non-exponential time decay of the mean number of quanta is found even though the correlation time associated with the oscillator-bath interaction is zero.
We present an approximation of a non-Markovian solution for the time evolution of the mean number of quanta in an anharmonic oscillator linearly and stochastically coupled to a thermal bath. A colored Gaussian bath is explicitly considered, and a quantum treatment of the bath correlation functions, based on the use of a relation between their real and imaginary parts, is applied. The behavior of the oscillator is characterized by a reduced set of (five) parameters referring to the oscillator, the bath, and their mutual interaction. A comparison is made between the prediction of the approach for the mean stationary number of quanta and its exact value, which enables us to analyze its accuracy. When the Markovian limit holds, an explicit expression for a parameter measuring the time scale for the relaxation of the oscillator is obtained in terms of the characteristic parameters of the model. Except for very high temperatures, the anharmonicity has a small influence on this relaxation time. A numerical study of the time dependence of the mean number of quanta is presented on the basis of the reported analytical solution. We find that the anharmonicity is not a significant parameter in the appearance nor in the increase of non-Markovian effects.
A master equation for a quantum system coupled to a heat bath with stochastically fluctuating energy levels is derived by making use of the ensemble averaging and the averaging with respect to a stochastic process in the bath. Relaxation terms are determined in the Born approximation with respect to the system-bath interaction and the damping parameters related to a relaxation kernel are specified. In parallel with the spectral strength of the bath, the damping parameters determine the transient times for the Markovian description creating the physical origin of the slippage [A. Suarez, R. Sibey, and I. Oppenheim, J. Chem. Phys. 97, 5101 (1992)]. The influence of energy fluctuations of the bath is analyzed for a two-level system including the solution of the corresponding non-Markovian equation for the level population difference. The conditions for the formation of Boltzmann's thermal ratio between steady-state populations are evaluated as well.
The Nakajima–Zwanzig generalized quantum master equation provides a general, and formally exact, prescription for simulating the reduced dynamics of a quantum system coupled to a quantum bath. In this equation, the memory kernel accounts for the influence of the bath on the system’s dynamics. The standard approach is based on using a perturbative treatment of the system–bath coupling for calculating this kernel, and is therefore restricted to systems weakly coupled to the bath. In this paper, we propose a new approach for calculating the memory kernel for an arbitrary system–bath coupling. The memory kernel is obtained by solving a set of two coupled integral equations that relate it to a new type of two-time system-dependent bath correlation functions. The feasibility of the method is demonstrated in the case of an asymetrical two-level system linearly coupled to a harmonic bath.
The generalized quantum master equation provides an exact equation of motion for the reduced density operator of a quantum system coupled to one or more baths, with all bath-induced effects encoded in a memory kernel superoperator. In this paper, we investigate whether the memory kernel for a system coupled simultaneously to multiple independent baths can be written as a sum of memory kernels associated with the corresponding single-bath problems. We show that such additivity holds in the weak system-bath coupling limit, where the second-order memory kernel separates into independent bath contributions. Beyond this limit, however, the baths become dynamically correlated through their mutual coupling to the system, and the exact multi-bath memory kernel is no longer equal to the sum of exact single-bath memory kernels. We demonstrate this non-additivity for a two-level system linearly coupled to hot and cold harmonic baths, using the hierarchical equations of motion method to construct the memory kernels. The results show that non-additivity increases with system-bath coupling strength and is process-dependent: coherence damping remains comparatively well described by an additive kernel, whereas population-coherence and coherence-coherence transfer exhibit pronounced non-additive behavior. These findings clarify the limitations of additive multi-bath descriptions and highlight the ambiguity of decomposing heat flow into independent bath-resolved contributions beyond weak system-bath coupling.