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Stochastic Dynamics In Hilbert Space

Heinz‐Peter Breuer, Francesco Petruccione

Published Jan 25, 2007• 0 citations
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Abstract

Abstract This chapter contains the foundations of the stochastic formulation of continuous measurements carried out on an open quantum system. It shows that the time evolution of the state vector, conditioned on the measurement record, is given by a piecewise deterministic process in Hilbert space involving continuous time-evolution periods which are broken by randomly occurring, sudden quantum jumps. This so-called unravelling of the quantum master equation in the form of a stochastic process is based on a close relation between quantum dynamical semigroups and piecewise deterministic processes. The general theory is illustrated by means of a number of examples, such as direct, homodyne, and heterodyne photodetection. The chapter also treats the corresponding description of continuous measurements through stochastic Schr ö dinger equations and stochastic differential equations for the density matrix, as well as the stochastic representation of multitime correlations functions.

DOI
10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199213900.003.06

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Abstract This chapter contains the foundations of the stochastic formulation of continuous measurements carried out on an open quantum system. It shows that the time evolution of the state vector, conditioned on the measurement record, is given by a piecewise deterministic process in Hilbert space involving continuous time-evolution periods which are broken by randomly occurring, sudden quantum jumps. This so-called unravelling of the quantum master equation in the form of a stochastic process is based on a close relation between quantum dynamical semigroups and piecewise deterministic processes. The general theory is illustrated by means of a number of examples, such as direct, homodyne, and heterodyne photodetection. The chapter also treats the corresponding description of continuous measurements through stochastic Schr ö dinger equations and stochastic differential equations for the density matrix, as well as the stochastic representation of multitime correlations functions.
The stochastic dynamics of open quantum systems interacting with a zero temperature environment is investigated by employing a formulation of quantum statistical ensembles in terms of probability distributions on projective Hilbert space. It is demonstrated that the open system dynamics can consistently be described by a stochastic process on the reduced state space. The physical meaning of reduced probability distributions on projective Hilbert space is derived from a complete, orthogonal measurement of the environment. The elimination of the variables of the environment is shown to lead to a piecewise deterministic process in Hilbert space defined by a differential Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. A Hilbert space path integral representation of the stochastic process is constructed. The general theory is illustrated by means of three examples from quantum optics. For these examples the microscopic derivation of the stochastic process is given and the general solution of the differential Chapman-Kolmogorov equation is constructed by means of the path integral representation.
A formulation of quantum statistical ensembles in terms of probability distributions on a projective Hilbert space is developed. The combination of statistically independent systems and the reduction of a system to one of its subsystems are described by means of a tensor product of probability distributions and a reduction formula for the reduced probability distribution. Within this framework the dynamics of open quantum systems is investigated starting form a microscopic system-plus-reservoir model. Employing the Markov approximation of the classical theory of stochastic processes the short time behavior of the conditional transition probability is derived and shown to yield a differential Chapman-Kolmogorov equation. The latter has the form of a Liouville master equation for the reduced probability distribution of the open quantum system. Thus it is shown that the time-dependent wave function of an open quantum system represents a well-defined and unique stochastic process in the space of rays of the underlying Hilbert space. This stochastic process consists of a continuous time evolution generated by a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation and a discontinuous jump process; the realizations of the processes correspond to those of the Monte Carlo wave function simulation method and to those of the jump-type evolution of the quantum trajectory method. The quantum master equation for the statistical operator is derived as the equation of motion for the two-point correlation function of the stochastic process.
Abstract This chapter characterizes the statistical properties of a quantum mechanical ensemble in terms of a density matrix. However, if selective measurements of one or several observables are carried out on the ensemble, it will split into a number of sub-ensembles, each sub-ensemble being conditioned on a particular outcome of the measurements. The mathematical description of the collection of sub-ensembles thus created leads to probability distributions on projective Hilbert space. The chapter develops an appropriate mathematical framework which enables the general formulation of such a distribution, and leads to the concepts of stochastic state vectors and stochastic density matrices. These concepts are required in later chapters to construct appropriate stochastic differential equations describing the continuous monitoring of open quantum systems.
Abstract The formulation of the dynamics of open quantum systems by means of stochastic processes in Hilbert space leads to efficient Monte–Carlo simulation techniques which are introduced and examined in this chapter. Depending on whether the stochastic process is a piecewise deterministic process or a diffusion process, the corresponding individual realizations consist of intervals of deterministic evolution periods interrupted by instantaneous quantum jumps, or of continuous, nowhere differentiable paths. Various Monte Carlo algorithms for both types of processes are described in detail, and their convergence behaviour and their numerical performance is investigated for a number of applications, such as the damped harmonic oscillator, the driven two-level system, and the damped driven Morse oscillator.
It is shown that non-Markovian master equations for an open system which are local in time can be unravelled through a piecewise deterministic quantum jump process in its Hilbert space. We derive a stochastic Schrödinger equation that reveals how non-Markovian effects are manifested in statistical correlations between different realizations of the process. Moreover, we demonstrate that possible violations of the positivity of approximate master equations are closely connected to singularities of the stochastic Schrödinger equation, which could lead to important insights into the structural characterization of positive non-Markovian equations of motion.
The theory of measurements continuous in time in quantum mechanics (quantum continual measurements) has been formulated by using the notions of instrument and positive operator valued measure, functional integrals, quantum stochastic differential equations and classical stochastic differential equations (SDE's). Various types of SDE's are involved, and precisely linear and non linear equations for vectors in Hilbert spaces and for trace-class operators. All such equations contain either a diffusive part, or a jump one, or both. In this paper we introduce a class of linear SDE's for trace-class operators, relevant to the theory of continual measurements, and we recall how such SDE's are related to instruments and master equations and, so, to the general formulation of quantum mechanics. We do not present the Hilbert space formulation of such SDE's and we make some mathematical simplifications: no time dependence is introduced into the coefficients and only bounded operators on the Hilbert space of the quantum system are considered. Then we introduce the notion of a posteriori state and the non linear SDE satisfied by such states and we give conditions from which such equation is assured to preserve pure states and to send any mixed state into a pure one for large times. Finally we review the known results about the existence and uniqueness of invariant measures in the purely diffusive case and we give some concrete examples of physical systems.