Atti della Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti. Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali/Atti della Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti, Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturali
The density matrix in the non-Hermitian approach to open quantum system dynamics
In this paper we review an approach to the dynamics of open quantum systems based of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians arise naturally when one wish to study a subsystem interacting with a continuum of states. Moreover, quantum subsystems with probability sinks or sources are naturally described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Herein, we discuss a non-Hermitian formalism based on the density matrix. We show both how to derive the equations of motion of the density matrix and how to define statistical averages properly. It turns out that the laws of evolution of the normalized density matrix are intrinsically non-linear. We also show how to define correlation functions and a non-Hermitian entropy with a non zero production rate. The formalism has been generalized to the case of hybrid quantum-classical systems using a partial Wigner representation. The equations of motion and the statistical averages are defined analogously to the pure quantum case. However, the definition of the entropy requires to introduce a non-Hermitian linear entropy functional.
In this paper we review an approach to the dynamics of open quantum systems based of non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Non-Hermitian Hamiltonians arise naturally when one wish to study a subsystem interacting with a continuum of states. Moreover, quantum subsystems with probability sinks or sources are naturally described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Herein, we discuss a non-Hermitian formalism based on the density matrix. We show both how to derive the equations of motion of the density matrix and how to define statistical averages properly. It turns out that the laws of evolution of the normalized density matrix are intrinsically non-linear. We also show how to define correlation functions and a non-Hermitian entropy with a non zero production rate. The formalism has been generalized to the case of hybrid quantum-classical systems using a partial Wigner representation. The equations of motion and the statistical averages are defined analogously to the pure quantum case. However, the definition of the entropy requires to introduce a non-Hermitian linear entropy functional.
We consider the description of open quantum systems with probability sinks (or sources) in terms of general non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Within such a framework, we study novel possible definitions of the quantum linear entropy as an indicator of the flow of information during the dynamics. Such linear entropy functionals are necessary in the case of a partially Wigner-transformed non-Hermitian Hamiltonian (which is typically useful within a mixed quantum-classical representation). Both the case of a system represented by a pure non-Hermitian Hamiltonian as well as that of the case of non-Hermitian dynamics in a classical bath are explicitly considered.
Abstract. We study the quantum entropy of systems that are described by general non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, including those which can model the effects of sinks or sources. We generalize the von Neumann entropy to the non-Hermitian case and find that one needs both the normalized and non-normalized density operators in order to properly describe irreversible processes. It turns out that such a generalization monitors the onset of disorder in quantum dissipative systems. We give arguments for why one can consider the generalized entropy as the informational entropy describing the flow of information between the system and the bath. We illustrate the theory by explicitly studying few simple models, including tunneling systems with two energy levels and non-Hermitian detuning.
From their conception to present times, different concepts and definitions of entropy take key roles in a variety of areas from thermodynamics to information science, and they can be applied to both classical and quantum systems. Among them is the Rényi entropy. It is able to characterize various properties of classical information with a unified concise form. We focus on the quantum counterpart, which unifies the von Neumann entropy, max- and min-entropy, collision entropy, etc. It can only be directly applied to Hermitian systems because it usually requires that the density matrices is normalized. For a non-Hermitian system, the evolved density matrix may not be normalized; i.e., the trace can be larger or less than one as the time evolution. However, it is not well-defined for the Rényi entropy with a non-normalized probability distribution relevant to the density matrix of a non-Hermitian system, especially when the trace of the non-normalized density matrix is larger than one. In this work, we investigate how to describe the Rényi entropy for non-Hermitian systems more appropriately. We obtain a concisely and generalized form of α-Rényi entropy, which we extend the unified order-α from finite positive real numbers to zero and infinity. Our generalized α-Rényi entropy can be directly calculated using both of the normalized and non-normalized density matrices so that it is able to describe non-Hermitian entropy dynamics. We illustrate the necessity of our generalization by showing the differences between ours and the conventional Rényi entropy for non-Hermitian detuning two-level systems.
We introduce a formalism for time-dependent correlation functions for systems whose evolutions are governed by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians of general type. It turns out that one can define two different types of time correlation functions. Both these definitions seem to be physically consistent while becoming equivalent only in certain cases. Moreover, when autocorrelation functions are considered, one can introduce another function defined as the relative difference between the two definitions. We conjecture that such a function can be used to assess the positive semidefiniteness of the density operator without computing its eigenvalues. We illustrate these points by studying analytically a number of models with two energy levels.
Within the framework of the quantum-statistical approach, utilizing both non-Hermitian Hamiltonian and Lindblad’s jump operators, one can derive various generalizations of the von Neumann equation for reduced density operators, also known as hybrid master equations. If one considers the evolution of pure states only, i.e., disregarding the coherence between states and spontaneous transitions from pure to mixed states, then one can resort to quantum-mechanical equations of the Schrödinger type. We derive them from the hybrid master equations and study their main properties, which indicate that our equations have a larger range of applicability compared to other generalized Schrödinger equations proposed hitherto. Among other features, they can describe not only systems which remain in the stationary eigenstates of the Hamiltonian as time passes, but also those which evolve from those eigenstates. As an example, we consider a simple but important model, a quantum harmonic oscillator driven by both Hamiltonian and non-Hamiltonian terms, and derive its classical limit, which turns out to be the damped harmonic oscillator. Using this model, we demonstrate that the effects of dissipative environments of different types can cancel each other, thus resulting in an effectively dissipation-free classical system. Another discussed phenomenon is whether a non-trivial quantum system can reduce to a classical system in free motion, i.e., without experiencing any classical Newtonian forces. This uncovers a large class of quantum-mechanical non-Hamiltonian systems whose dynamics are not determined by conventional mechanics’ potentials and forces, but rather come about through quantum statistical effects caused by the system’s environment.
A longstanding tool to characterize the evolution of open Markovian quantum systems is the GKSL (Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad) master equation. However, in some cases, open quantum systems can be effectively described with non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, which have attracted great interest in the last twenty years due to a number of unconventional properties, such as the appearance of exceptional points. Here, we present a short review of these two different approaches aiming in particular to highlight their relation and illustrate different ways of connecting non-Hermitian Hamiltonian to a GKSL master equation for the full density matrix.