The theory of a previous article, dealing with two types of two-level systems coupled to a loss mechanism (LM), is extended. The first extension consists of the consideration of the most general type of two-level system (TLS), in which the dipole moment is expanded in terms of the three Pauli spin matrices and unit matrix, the expansion coefficients being vectors (dipole vectors). The second extension consists of the addition to the thermal-reservoir type of LM of a large number of systems identical to the TLS under consideration. The TLS is described in terms of the time development of the Pauli matrices and differential equations are obtained for their expectation value in the presence of arbitrary driving fields. The Bloch equations for a magnetic dipole of spin \textonehalf{} are exhibited as a special case of these equations, corresponding to a particular combination of the dipole vectors. All other combinations describe electric dipole systems. Equations for two simple special cases of such systems are presented, one treated in the previous article and the other having permanent dipole moment. The frequency of oscillation of a freely decaying TLS is derived and shown to be shifted by an amount that depends on the relationship between the dipole vectors. It is pointed out that the commonly held belief that any TLS can be represented as a magnetic dipole of spin \textonehalf{} is only approximately correct in the presence of dissipation. The conditions under which the differential equations for the expectation values of the dynamical variables of the TLS can be converted into differential equations for macroscopic variables are discussed.
A general approach to the construction of non-Markovian quantum theory is proposed. Non-Markovian equations for quantum observables and states are suggested by using general fractional calculus. In the proposed approach, the non-locality in time is represented by operator kernels of the Sonin type. A wide class of the exactly solvable models of non-Markovian quantum dynamics is suggested. These models describe open (non-Hamiltonian) quantum systems with general form of nonlocality in time. To describe these systems, the Lindblad equations for quantum observable and states are generalized by taking into account a general form of nonlocality. The non-Markovian quantum dynamics is described by using integro-differential equations with general fractional derivatives and integrals with respect to time. The exact solutions of these equations are derived by using the operational calculus that is proposed by Yu. Luchko for general fractional differential equations. Properties of bi-positivity, complete positivity, dissipativity, and generalized dissipativity in general non-Markovian quantum dynamics are discussed. Examples of a quantum oscillator and two-level quantum system with a general form of nonlocality in time are suggested.
We present an efficient, nearly optimal quantum algorithm for solving linear matrix differential equations, with applications to the simulation of open quantum systems and beyond. For unitary or dissipative dynamics, the algorithm computes an entry of the solution matrix with query complexity O(νLt/ε), where the constant ν depends on the problem parameters, L involves a time integral of upper bounds on the norms of evolution operators, and ε is the error. In particular, νL is linear in t for unitary dynamics and can be a constant for dissipative dynamics. Our result contrasts prior quantum approaches for differential equations that typically require exponential time for this problem due to the encoding in a quantum state, which can lead to exponentially small amplitudes. We demonstrate the utility of the algorithm through an end-to-end application, namely the simulation of dissipative dynamics for non-interacting fermions, which can be extended to other quantum and classical systems. We compare with classical algorithms and give evidence of polynomial quantum speedups for systems in a lattice, which become more pronounced for systems with long-range interactions and can be shown to be exponential in general. We also provide a lower bound of Ω(νLt/ε) for unitary or dissipative dynamics that proves our algorithm is optimal up to logarithmic factors.