Abstract This chapter describes the basic features of open quantum systems, i.e. quantum systems that are affected by noise due to uncontrollable degrees of freedom of an environment or bath. This noise is responsible for effects such as dissipation,decoherence and irreversibility. We study the equilibrium states of open quantum systems and review tools from quantum measurement theory, which describe how to theory, that describe how to extract information from an (open) quantum system. We generalize these tools to multimulti-time statistics and define the notion of a quantum stochastic process and a quan tum Markov process. Finally, we study in which cases a quantum stochastic process looks classical.
Abstract This chapter describes the basic features of open quantum systems, i.e. quantum systems that are affected by noise due to uncontrollable degrees of freedom of an environment or bath. This noise is responsible for effects such as dissipation,decoherence and irreversibility. We study the equilibrium states of open quantum systems and review tools from quantum measurement theory, which describe how to theory, that describe how to extract information from an (open) quantum system. We generalize these tools to multimulti-time statistics and define the notion of a quantum stochastic process and a quan tum Markov process. Finally, we study in which cases a quantum stochastic process looks classical.
Introduction This chapter gives the physical and mathematical basis of decoherence in quantum systems, with particular emphasis on its importance in quantum information theory and quantum computation. We assume that the reader is already familiar with the basics of quantum mechanics, such as wave functions, the Schrödinger equation, and Hilbert spaces, which are covered in standard textbooks. Nevertheless, all basic concepts will be at least briefly defined and described. A working knowledge of graduate-level linear algebra and calculus is also assumed. In quantum information processing, the term decoherence is often used loosely to describe any kind of noise that can affect a quantum system. This can include sources of noise that seem, qualitatively, to be quite different from each other. These noise sources include: (i) Random driving forces from the environment (e.g., Brownian motion). (ii) Interactions that produce entanglement between the system and the environment. (iii) Statistical imprecision in the experimental controls on the system (e.g., timing errors, frequency fluctuations, etc.). Remarkably, all of these sources of noise can be described by an almost identical mathematical framework, in which pure quantum states can evolve into mixed quantum states, and the quantum effects necessary for information processing – interference, entanglement, and reversible evolution – are disrupted. The chapter begins by examining a highly schematic model of decoherence, involving systems of qubits, but uses this model to present the mathematical formalism used in describing more realistic systems as well.
The basic features of the dynamics of open quantum systems, such as the dissipation of energy, the decay of coherences, the relaxation to an equilibrium or non-equilibrium stationary state, and the transport of excitations in complex structures are of central importance in many applications of quantum mechanics. The theoretical description, analysis and control of non-Markovian quantum processes play an important role in this context. While in a Markovian process an open system irretrievably loses information to its surroundings, non-Markovian processes feature a flow of information from the environment back to the open system, which implies the presence of memory effects and represents the key property of non-Markovian quantum behavior. Here, we review recent ideas developing a general mathematical definition for non-Markoviantiy in the quantum regime and a measure for the degree of memory effects in the dynamics of open systems which are based on the exchange of information between system and environment. We further study the dynamical effects induced by the presence of system-environment correlations in the total initial state and design suitable methods to detect such correlations through local measurements on the open system.
Abstract Quantum stochastic differential equations are shown to naturally arise because of the mathematical background of the correctness of the Schrödinger equation, which describes the interaction of an open quantum system with broadband quantized fields in the Markov approximation. The main classical and quantum stochastic processes appear in the notation in the Markov approximation of the operator of the electric broadband quantized field strength and the effective Hamiltonian of the interaction of a quantum system with it obtained by the methods of algebraic resonance perturbation theory. All basic stochastic quantum processes, including the counting and two-quantum Lévy processes, are constructed based on quantum white noise, which differs significantly from the classical case. At the same time, the apparatus of stochastic differential equations demonstrates consistency and parallelism.
The unavoidable interaction of a quantum system with its environment usually degrades its coherence and quantumness. The environment and the decoherence process may be described as the interaction with a classical or quantized bath. As a matter of fact, the classical description becomes progressively more reliable as far as the environment has many degrees of freedom, i.e. it becomes complex, or when the interaction between a quantum system and a classical fluctuating field is taken into account. In this thesis, I consider a qubit system coupled to a stochastic classical field and address�the decoherence and non-Markovianity induced by the external noise as well as the spectral characterization of the classical field by quantum-limited measurement on the qubit. I thus analyze the dynamics of quantum correlations between two non-interacting, initially entangled qubits subject to a classical noise generated by a stochastic process. Two relevant classes of noise are taken into account: Gaussian noise, such as the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, and non-Gaussian noise, such as the random telgraph noise and the colored noise with 1/f spectrum. I also discuss the evaluation of non-Markovianity of the induced dynamical map and link the presence of revivals of quantum correlations with the information backflow to the system. The precise characterization of the stochastic process generating the classical noise, possibly using minimal resources, is a crucial ingredient for the design of high-precision measurements and reliable communication protocols. To this purpose, I also address the characterization of the spectral parameters of classical noise by quantum probes, e.g. a qubit coupled to the stochastic process generating the noise. By using the tools of quantum estimation theory, I explore the performances of quantum measurements on the qubit and show that it is possible to effectively extract information about the noise.
In this thesis, common features from the theories of open quantum systems, estimation of state dynamics and statistical mechanics have been integrated in a comprehensive framework, with the aim to analyze and quantify the energetic and information contents that can be extracted from a dynamical system subject to the external environment. The latter is usually assumed to be deleterious for the feasibility of specic control tasks, since it can be responsible for uncontrolled time-dependent (and even discontinuous) changes \nof the system. However, if the effects of the random interaction with a noisy environment are properly modeled by the introduction of a given stochasticity within the dynamics of the system, then even noise contributions might be seen as control knobs. As a matter of fact, even a partial knowledge of the environment can allow to set the system in a dynamical condition in which the response is optimized by the presence of noise sources. In particular, we have investigated what kind of measurement devices can work better in \nnoisy dynamical regimes and studied how to maximize the resultant information via the adoption of estimation algorithms. Moreover, we have shown the optimal interplay between quantum dynamics, environmental noise and complex network topology in maximizing the energy transport efficiency. Then, foundational scientic aspects, such as the occurrence of an ergodic property for the system-environment interaction modes of a randomly perturbed quantum system or the characterization of the stochastic quantum Zeno phenomena, have been analyzed by using the predictions of the large deviation theory. Finally, the energy cost in maintaining the system in the non-equilibrium regime due to the presence of the environment is evaluated by reconstructing the corresponding thermodynamics entropy production. In conclusion, the present thesis can constitute the basis for an effective \nresource theory of noise, which is given by properly engineering the interaction between a dynamical (quantum or classical) system and its external environment.
Generic open quantum systems are notoriously difficult to simulate unless one looks at specific regimes. In contrast, classical dissipative systems can often be effectively described by stochastic processes, which are generally less computationally expensive. Here, we use the paradigmatic case of a dissipative quantum oscillator to give a pedagogic introduction to the modeling of open quantum systems using quasiclassical methods, i.e., classical stochastic methods that use a "quantum" noise spectrum to capture the influence of the environment on the system. Such quasiclassical methods have the potential to offer insights into the impact of the quantum nature of the environment on the dynamics of the system of interest while still being computationally tractable.