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Contact manifolds and dissipation, classical and quantum

Florio M. Ciaglia, Hans Cruz-Prado, Giuseppe Marmo

Published Jan 1, 2018• 40 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Motivated by a geometric decomposition of the vector field associated with the Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan (GKLS) equation for finite-level open quantum systems, we propose a generalization of the recently introduced contact Hamiltonian systems for the description of dissipative-like dynamical systems in the context of (non-necessarily exact) contact manifolds. In particular, we show how this class of dynamical systems naturally emerges in the context of Lagrangian Mechanics and in the case of nonlinear evolutions on the space of pure states of a finite-level quantum system.

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Motivated by a geometric decomposition of the vector field associated with the Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan (GKLS) equation for finite-level open quantum systems, we propose a generalization of the recently introduced contact Hamiltonian systems for the description of dissipative-like dynamical systems in the context of (non-necessarily exact) contact manifolds. In particular, we show how this class of dynamical systems naturally emerges in the context of Lagrangian Mechanics and in the case of nonlinear evolutions on the space of pure states of a finite-level quantum system.
This paper develops a bridge between bi-Hamiltonian structures of Poisson--Lie type, contact Hamiltonian dynamics, and the Gorini--Kossakowski--Sudarshan--Lindblad (GKSL) formalism for open quantum systems. On the classical side, we consider bi-Hamiltonian systems defined by a Poisson pencil with non-trivial invariants. Using an exact symplectic realization, these invariants are lifted and projected onto a contact manifold, yielding a completely integrable contact Hamiltonian system and a Jacobi-commutative algebra of observables. On the quantum side, we introduce a class of contact-compatible Lindblad generators: GKSL evolutions whose dissipative part preserves a commutative C∗C^\astC∗-subalgebra generated by the quantizations of the classical dissipated quantities, and whose Hamiltonian part admits an Egorov-type semiclassical limit to the contact dynamics. This construction provides a mathematical mechanism compatible with the semiclassical limit for pure dephasing, compatible with integrability and contact dissipation. An explicit Poisson--Lie pencil, inspired by deformed Euler top models, is developed as a fully worked-out example illustrating the resulting bi-Lindblad structure and its semiclassical behavior.
An open quantum system can be described by a master equation, of which one of the most popular is the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) equation. We revisit description of driven-dissipative quantum systems focusing on the appropriate choice of the system's basis and the respective transformations. We consider the GKSL equation in different bases and calculate the dynamics for a qubit and for a qudit. An appropriate choice of the basis is a fundamental problem for theoretical consideration of open quantum systems and provides an opportunity to obtain the desired evolution in practice.
The year 2026 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the two seminal papers in which Gorini, Kossakowski, and Sudarshan, and independently Lindblad, characterized the generators of completely positive quantum dynamical semigroups. We revisit the conceptual and historical route leading to the Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan (GKLS) master equation and examine several of its early developments and consequences. Our aim is to show how several initially separate mathematical and physical ideas converged in the GKLS structure theorem, imme- diately opening the way to manifold consequences for the description of dissipative quantum phenomena and how that theorem, fifty years later, remains both a foundational result and an active framework for open quantum dynamics.
Starting from the geometric description of quantum systems, we propose a novel approach to time-independent dissipative quantum processes according to which energy is dissipated but the coherence of the states is preserved. Our proposal consists of extending the standard symplectic picture of quantum mechanics to a contact manifold and then obtaining dissipation by using appropriate contact Hamiltonian dynamics. We work out the case of finite-level systems for which it is shown, by means of the corresponding contact master equation, that the resulting dynamics constitute a viable alternative candidate for the description of this subclass of dissipative quantum systems. As a concrete application, motivated by recent experimental observations, we describe quantum decays in a 2-level system as coherent and continuous processes.
These notes are a short introduction to the mathematical theory of open quantum systems. They are meant to serve as an entry point into a broad research area which has applications across the quantum sciences dealing with systems subjected to external noise. The guiding idea is to let the key structures of the theory emerge from a concrete model. By working through the dissipative Jaynes-Cummings model the reader will dis- cover explicitly how irreversible dynamics arises from a unitary system-reservoir evolution. The notions of the continuous mode limit, correlation functions, spectral density appear in a natural manner and lead to the evolution equation of the open system in form of a master equation. This sets the stage for the more general analysis of completely positive, trace preserving (CPTP) maps and the study of quantum dynamical semigroups. We motivate and prove the Kraus representation theorem, the dilation theorem and the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) theorem. Working through the exercises (for which full solutions are supplied) will reinforce the ideas introduced in the main text.
The time evolution of an open quantum system is governed by the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad equation for the reduced density operator of the system. This operator is obtained from the full density operator of the composite system involving the system itself, the bath, and the correlations between them, by performing a partial trace over the bath degrees of freedom. The entanglement between the system and the bath leads to a generalized Liouville evolution that involves, among other things, dissipation and decoherence of the system. In a similar fashion, the time evolution of a physical observable in a classically constrained dynamical system is governed by a generalization of the Liouville equation, in which the usual Poisson bracket is replaced by the so-called Dirac bracket. The generalization takes into account the reduction in the phase space of the system because of constraints that arise either because they are introduced by hand or because of singular Lagrangians. We derive an intriguing but precise classical-quantum correspondence between the aforementioned situations which connects the Lindblad operators to the constraints. The correspondence is illustrated in the ubiquitous example of coupled simple harmonic oscillators studied earlier in various contexts such as quantum optics, dissipative quantum systems, Brownian motion, and the area law for the entropy of black holes.