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Journal of Physics A Mathematical and General

Determinism and randomness in quantum dynamics

Göran Lindblad

Published Dec 7, 1993• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A class of models is considered where a finite or infinite quantum dynamical system in a stationary state is probed by sequences of observations acting on a specified finite subsystem. The whole set of such experiments is described by a time-ordered (causal) and stationary quantum correlation kernel. It is shown that any such kernel can be decomposed in a unique way into a convex combination of two kernels, here called the regular and singular components. A singular system has a strong deterministic property, the predictability of the future from the knowledge of the past is limited only by the inevitable indeterminism of quantum measurements. Furthermore, in this case the full set of correlation functions of arbitrary time order, and hence the dynamical system itself, is determined by the causal kernel. Finite systems and infinite systems satisfying the KMS condition at finite temperature are of this type. In the regular case the dynamics contains a shift, there is a genuine asymptotic randomness and the dynamical system cannot be reconstructed in a unique way from the causal kernel. Non-trivial quantum Markov processes are shown to belong to this class.

DOI
10.1088/0305-4470/26/23/053

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A class of models is considered where a finite or infinite quantum dynamical system in a stationary state is probed by sequences of observations acting on a specified finite subsystem. The whole set of such experiments is described by a time-ordered (causal) and stationary quantum correlation kernel. It is shown that any such kernel can be decomposed in a unique way into a convex combination of two kernels, here called the regular and singular components. A singular system has a strong deterministic property, the predictability of the future from the knowledge of the past is limited only by the inevitable indeterminism of quantum measurements. Furthermore, in this case the full set of correlation functions of arbitrary time order, and hence the dynamical system itself, is determined by the causal kernel. Finite systems and infinite systems satisfying the KMS condition at finite temperature are of this type. In the regular case the dynamics contains a shift, there is a genuine asymptotic randomness and the dynamical system cannot be reconstructed in a unique way from the causal kernel. Non-trivial quantum Markov processes are shown to belong to this class.
Statistically interpretable axioms are formulated that define a quantum stochastic process (QSP) as a causally ordered operator field in an arbitrary space-time region T of an open quantum system under a sequential observation at a discrete space-time localization. It is shown that to every QSP described in the weak sense by a self-consistent system of causally ordered correlation kernels there corresponds a unique, up to unitary equivalence, minimal QSP in the strong sense. It is shown that the proposed QSP construction, which reduces in the case of the linearly ordered discrete T=Z to the construction of the inductive limit of Lindblad's canonical representations, corresponds to Kolmogorov's classical reconstruction if the order on T is ignored and leads to Lewis construction if one uses the system of all (not only causal) correlation kernels, regarding this system as lexicographically preordered on T. The approach presented encompasses both nonrelativistic and relativistic irreversible dynamics of open quantum systems and fields satisfying the conditions of local commutativity and semigroup covariance. Also given are necessary and sufficient conditions of dynamicity (or conditional Markovianity) and regularity, these leading to the properties of complete mixing (relaxation) and ergodicity of the QSP.
Requiring that the causal structure between different parties is well-defined imposes constraints on the correlations they can establish, which define so-called causal correlations. Some of these are known to have a "dynamical" causal order in the sense that their causal structure is not fixed a priori but is instead established on the fly, with for instance the causal order between future parties depending on some choice of action of parties in the past. Here we identify a new way that the causal order between the parties can be dynamical: with at least four parties, there can be some dynamical order which can nevertheless not be influenced by the actions of past parties. This leads us to introduce an intermediate class of correlations with what we call non-influenceable causal order, in between the set of correlations with static (non-dynamical) causal order and the set of general causal correlations. We then define analogous classes of quantum processes, considering recently introduced classes of quantum circuits with classical or quantum control of causal order---the latter being the largest class within the process matrix formalism known to have a clear interpretation in terms of coherent superpositions of causal orders. This allows us to formalise precisely in which sense certain quantum processes can have both indefinite and dynamical causal order.
It is shown, using only elementary operator algebra, that an open quantum system coupled to its environment will have a subdynamics (reduced dynamics) as an exact consequence of the reversible dynamics of the composite system only when the states of system and environment are uncorrelated. Furthermore, it is proved that for a finite temperature the KMS condition for the lowest-order correlation function cannot be reproduced by any type of linear subdynamics except the reversible Hamiltonian one of a closed system. The first statement can be seen as a particular case of a more general theorem of Takesaki on the properties of conditional expectations in von Neumann algebras. The concept of subdynamics used here allows for memory effects, no assumption is made of a Markov property. For dynamical systems based on commutative algebras of observables the subdynamics always exists as a stochastic process in the random variable defining the open subsystem.
Non-Markovian quantum processes exhibit different memory effects when measured in different ways; an unambiguous characterization of memory length requires accounting for the sequence of instruments applied to probe the system dynamics. This instrument-specific notion of quantum Markov order displays stark differences to its classical counterpart. Here, we explore the structure of quantum stochastic processes with finite memory length in detail. We begin by examining a generalized collision model with memory, before framing this instance within the general theory. We detail the constraints that are placed on the underlying system-environment dynamics for a process to exhibit finite Markov order with respect to natural classes of probing instruments, including deterministic (unitary) operations and sequences of generalized quantum measurements with informationally complete repreparations. Lastly, we show how processes with vanishing quantum conditional mutual information form a special case of the theory. Throughout, we provide a number of representative, pedagogical examples to display the salient features of memory effects in quantum processes.
In the present Thesis we study the behavior of multi-time correlation functions and of thermodynamical quantities such as heat in open quantum systems undergoing an evolution generally affected by the presence of memory effects, i.e. non-Markovian. In the last decade, a large part of the scientific community in this field has dedicated its efforts to the understanding, precise definition and quantification of non-Markovianity in the quantum realm and now we have at our disposal several benchmark results and a plethora of different estimators that allow to determine the degree of non-Markovianity of a given dynamics. It comes therefore natural to investigate how other different dynamical quantities relate to such estimators also in order to understand the physical implications of memory effects on the statistics of observable quantities. In the first part of this work, a quantitative test of the violation of the so-called quantum regression theorem in presence of a non-Markovian dynamical regime is investigated. The quantum regression theorem represents a procedure that, whenever valid, allows to reconstruct two-time correlation functions of system's operators from the sole knowledge of the dynamics of mean values. It is worth stressing that two-time correlation functions are necessary in order to fully characterize the statistical properties of a quantum system, since they are able to catch aspects of the dynamics, such as fluorescence spectrum, in general not accessible looking at mean values. Despite their relevance however, obtaining two-time correlation functions often represents a formidable task, since the knowledge of the full "system+environment" dynamics is required, a generally too demanding request in the context of open quantum systems theory. The quantum regression theorem represents in this regard the easiest route to determine two-time correlation functions, this highlighting its importance. In this work we show that, in a pure-dephasing spin-boson model, the quantum regression theorem represents a stronger condition than non-Markovianity, in the sense that any presence of memory effects in the reduced dynamics inevitably results in violations to the former. These results have been published in [G.Guarnieri, A. Smirne, B. Vacchini, Phys. Rev. A 90, 022110 (2014)]. The second part of the Thesis is devoted to the characterization of heat ow at the microscopic level in open quantum systems, both finite and infinite dimensional. In particular we begin by studying the time behavior of its mean value in a non-Markovian dynamical regime, showing that, at variance with what happens in the Born-Markov semigroup limiting case, heat can backflow from the environment to the system. After providing a condition for the occurrence of such phenomenon and a measure for its amount for a given dynamics, the relationship with suitable non-Markovianity estimators is sought in two paradigmatic models, namely the spin-boson and the quantum brownian motion. The results, collected in [ G. Guarnieri, C. Uchiyama, B. Vacchini, Phys. Rev. A 93, 012118 (2016); G. Guarnieri, J. Nokkala, R. Schmidt, S. Maniscalco, B. Vacchini, Phys. Rev. A 94, 062101 (2016)], on the one hand allow for the identification of parameter-regions where the heat backflow is absent or maximum. On the other hand they show that the occurrence of heat backflow represents a stricter condition than non-Markovianity, in the sense that non-Markovianity allows for the observation of heat flowing back from the environment to the system and, vice versa, a Markovian dynamics prevents its occurrence. This Thesis concludes with the formulation of a new family of lower bounds to the mean dissipated heat in an environmental-assisted erasure-protocol scenario where Landauer's principle applies. As originally conceived for classical systems, this principle states that every irreversible erasure of information stored in a system inevitably carries along an amount of heat dissipated into the environment which is expended to perform the action. Within the framework recently put forward in [D. Reeb, M. M. Wolf, New J. Phys. 16, 103011 (2014)], which guarantees the validity of Landauer's principle in an open quantum systems scenario, we provide an asymptotically tight family of lower bounds to the dissipated heat which are also valid in the non-equilibrium setting. This construction is applied to an open system consisting of a three-level V-system, in which one transition is externally pumped by a laser field while the other is coupled through an XX-interaction to an environment consisting of a spin chain. Beside calculating all these quantities, an exact solution for the dynamics of such system is also provided. These results are collected in [G. Guarnieri, S. Campbell, J. Goold, S. Pigeon, M. Paternostro, B. Vacchini, in preparation].
We study thermalisation and the possible occurrence of the Mpemba effect in a closed quantum setting that mimics the interaction of a system with thermal reservoirs coupled only at its boundaries. Specifically, we consider a tripartite geometry in which a finite chain, initially prepared at a finite temperature, is suddenly connected on both sides to two semi-infinite chains of the same nature held at a different temperature. These outer chains act as thermal baths, while the full system evolves unitarily under a homogeneous Hamiltonian. This setup provides a simple quantum realisation of a temperature quench and closely resembles the original scenario in which the classical Mpemba effect was first observed. We focus on two paradigmatic free-fermion models, the XX chain and the transverse-field Ising chain, which respectively preserve and break the global U(1)U(1)U(1) particle-number symmetry. As a probe of relaxation, we consider the Frobenius distance between the time-evolved reduced density matrix of the central subsystem and its stationary state, which is the thermal state at the bath temperature. Exploiting the free-fermionic structure of both models, the dynamics remains Gaussian and the Frobenius distance can be expressed exactly in terms of two-point correlation functions. Combining this representation with generalised hydrodynamics, we derive analytical predictions for the Frobenius distance in the hydrodynamic limit, providing a complete characterisation of the thermalisation process. Using these results, we investigate the possible occurrence of the Mpemba effect. We find that, despite the genuine non-equilibrium dynamics displayed by the system, no Mpemba effect arises in this setting. Our analysis identifies a broad class of boundary-driven thermalisation protocols in which relaxation is fully characterised analytically and exhibits no anomalous acceleration of equilibration.