In the following, we study the dissipative time-evolution of a quantum chain consisting of three coupled harmonic oscillators, the first and third of which weakly interact quadratically with two independent thermal baths in equilibrium at different temperatures. Due to the quadratic form of the total Hamiltonian, the unitary dynamics of the compound system is formally analytically solvable and defines a one-parameter group of Gaussian maps which enables us to solve the exact dynamics of the chain numerically. Following the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad (GKSL) approach to open quantum systems, one can perform the rotating wave approximation with respect to the interacting, or non-interacting chain Hamiltonian and respectively derive the so-called global and local master equations. The solutions of the ensuing different master equations can then be compared with the exact one, possibly sorting out the two approaches in correspondence to different time-scales of the system. We derive the steady states of the open chain quantum dynamics in the two approaches and show that the behaviour of fidelity between them versus inter-oscillator coupling depends on the two bath temperatures, revealing the existence of a temperature-dependent critical inter-oscillator coupling strength that determines the domain of validity of each approach. When the newly found coupling is less than this critical value, the local approach outperforms the global approach, whereas for larger inter-oscillator coupling, the global approach is a better approximation of the exact evolution. This critical value of inter-oscillator coupling depends on the two bath temperatures, which then play a crucial role in deciding the best possible approximating open dynamics.
In the following, we study the dissipative time evolution of a quantum chain consisting of three coupled harmonic oscillators, the first and third of which weakly interact quadratically with two independent thermal baths in equilibrium at different temperatures. Due to the quadratic form of the total Hamiltonian, the uni- tary dynamics of the compound system is formally analytically solvable and defines a one-parameter group of Gaussian maps which enables us to solve the exact dynamics of the chain numerically. Following the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad approach to open quantum systems, one can perform the rotating-wave approximation with respect to the interacting or noninteracting chain Hamiltonian and respectively derive the so-called global and local master equations. The solutions of the ensuing different master equations can then be compared with the exact one, possibly sorting out the two approaches in correspondence to different timescales of the system. We derive the steady states of the open chain quantum dynamics in the two approaches and show that the behavior of fidelity between them versus interoscillator coupling depends on the two bath temperatures, revealing the existence of a temperature-dependent critical interoscillator coupling strength that determines the domain of validity of each approach. When the newly found coupling is less than this critical value, the local approach outperforms the global approach, whereas for larger interoscillator coupling, the global approach is a better approximation of the exact evolution. This critical value of interoscillator coupling depends on the two bath temperatures, which then play a crucial role in deciding the best possible approximating open dynamics.
We study an open quantum spin chain of arbitrary length with nearest neighbor
XX interactions of strength
g, immersed in an external constant magnetic field $\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$ along the
z direction, whose end spins are weakly coupled to two heat baths at different temperatures. In the so-called global approach, namely, without neglecting interspin interactions, using standard weak-coupling limit techniques, we first derive the open chain master equation written in terms of fermionic mode operators. Then, we focus on the study of the dependence of the resulting open dynamics from the ratio $r\ensuremath{\equiv}g/\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Delta}}$. By increasing
r, some of the chain Bohr transition frequencies become negative; when this occurs, both the generator of the dissipative time evolution and its stationary states behave discontinuously. As a consequence, the asymptotic spin and heat flows also exhibit discontinuities, but in a different way: while source terms in the spin flow continuity equation show jumps, the heat flow instead is continuous but with discontinuous first derivatives with respect to
r. These two behaviors might be experimentally accessible; in particular, they could discriminate between the global and the local approaches to open quantum spin chains. Indeed, the latter one, which neglects interspin interactions in the derivation of the master equation, does not show any kind of discontinuous behavior.
In this review, we discuss the decoherence and thermalization of a quantum spin system interacting with a spin bath environment, by numerically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation of the whole system. The effects of the topologic structure and the initial state of the environment on the decoherence of the two-spin and many-spin system are discussed. The role of different spin-spin coupling is considered. We show under which conditions the environment drives the reduced density matrix of the system to a fully decoherent state, and how the diagonal elements of the reduced density matrix approach those expected for the system in the microcanonical or canonical ensemble, depending on the character of the additional integrals of motion. Our demonstration does not rely on time-averaging of observables nor does it assume that the coupling between system and bath is weak. Our findings show that the microcanonical distribution (in each eigenenergy subspace) and canonical ensemble are states that may result from pure quantum dynamics, suggesting that quantum mechanics may be regarded as the foundation of quantum statistical mechanics. Furthermore, our numerical results show that a fully decoherent quantum system prefers to stay in an equilibrium state with a maximum entropy, indicating the validity of the second law of thermodynamics in the decoherence process.
Quantum stochastic methods based on effective wave functions form a framework for investigating the generally non-Markovian dynamics of a quantum-mechanical system coupled to a bath. They promise to be computationally superior to the master-equation approach, which is numerically expensive for large dimensions of the Hilbert space. Here, we numerically investigate the suitability of a known stochastic Schrödinger equation that is local in time to give a description of thermal relaxation and energy transport. This stochastic Schrödinger equation can be solved with a moderate numerical cost, indeed comparable to that of a Markovian system, and reproduces the dynamics of a system evolving according to a general non-Markovian master equation. After verifying that it describes thermal relaxation correctly, we apply it for the first time to the energy transport in a spin chain. We also discuss a portable algorithm for the generation of the coloured noise associated with the numerical solution of the non-Markovian dynamics.
We address the problem of spin dynamics in the presence of a thermal bath, by solving exactly the appropriate quantum master equations with continued-fraction methods. The crossover region between the quantum and classical domains is studied by increasing the spin value , and the asymptote for the classical absorption spectra is eventually recovered. Along with the recognized relevance of the coupling strength, we show the critical role played by the structure of the system-environment interaction in the emergence of classical phenomenology.