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arXiv:quant-ph/0606193 · Physical Review A

Solution of the Lindblad equation in the Kraus representation

Hiromichi Nakazato, Yuichiro Hida, Kazuya Yuasa, Benedetto Militello, Anna Napoli, ANTONINO MESSINA

Published Dec 28, 2006• 40 citations
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Abstract

The so-called Lindblad equation, a typical master equation describing the dissipative quantum dynamics, is shown to be solvable for finite-level systems in a compact form without resort to writing it down as a set of equations among matrix elements. The solution is then naturally given in an operator form, known as the Kraus representation. Following a few simple examples, the general applicability of the method is clarified.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.74.062113

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The so-called Lindblad equation, a typical master equation describing the dissipative quantum dynamics, is shown to be solvable for finite-level systems in a compact form without resort to writing it down as a set of equations among matrix elements. The solution is then naturally given in an operator form, known as the Kraus representation. Following a few simple examples, the general applicability of the method is clarified.
For any master equation which is local in time, whether Markovian, non-Markovian, of Lindblad form or not, a general procedure is given for constructing the corresponding linear map from the initial state to the state at time t, including its Kraus-type representations. Formally, this is equivalent to solving the master equation. For an N-dimensional Hilbert space it requires (i) solving a first order N 2×N 2 matrix time evolution (to obtain the completely positive map), and (ii) diagonalizing a related N 2×N 2 matrix (to obtain a Kraus-type representation). Conversely, for a given time-dependent linear map, a necessary and sufficient condition is given for the existence of a corresponding master equation, where the (not necessarily unique) form of this equation is explicitly determined. It is shown that a “best possible” master equation may always be defined, for approximating the evolution in the case that no exact master equation exists. Examples involving qubits are given.
The Kraus representation of quantum channels allows for a precise emulation of the complex dynamics that take place on quantum processors, whether for benchmarking algorithms, predicting the performance of error correction and mitigation, or in the myriad other uses of compiled digital sequences. Nonetheless, starting from first principles to obtain continuous quantum master equations involves various approximations such as weak coupling to the environment. Further, converting these equations to Kraus operators cannot generally be obtained in closed-form due to the complicated commutator structure of the problem. In our work, we bridge this gap by providing a general closed form formulation for arbitrarily strong driving while remaining linear in the dissipator. The Kraus solution is expressed as a Riemann sum where higher terms can converge quickly to high precision, which we demonstrate numerically. Such a formulation is highly relevant to quantum computing and gate-based models, where effective models are highly sought for large rotation gate angles, even under the influence of underlying non-trivial noise mechanisms.
We solve the fermionic master equation for a thermal bath to obtain its explicit Kraus operator solutions via the fermionic state approach. The normalization condition of the Kraus operators is proved. The matrix representation for these solutions is obtained, which is incongruous with the result in the book completed by Nielsen and Chuang [ Quantum Computation and Quantum Information , Cambridge University Press, 2000]. As especial cases, we also present the Kraus operator solutions to master equations for describing the amplitude-decay model and the diffusion process at finite temperature.
Reservoir engineering has proven to be a practical approach to control open quantum systems, preserving quantum coherence by appropriately manipulating the reservoir and system-reservoir interactions. In this context, for systems comprised of different parts, it is common to describe the dynamics of a subsystem of interest by making an adiabatic elimination of the remaining components of the system. This procedure often leads to an effective master equation for the subsystem that is not in the well-known Gorini-Kossakowski-Lindblad-Sudarshan form (here called standard Lindblad form). Instead, it has a more general structure (here called generalized Lindblad form), which explicitly reveals the dissipative coupling between the various components of the subsystem. In this work, we present a set of dynamical equations for the first and second moments of the canonical variables for linear systems, bosonic and fermionic, described by master equations in a generalized Lindblad form. Our method is efficient and allows one to obtain analytical solutions for the steady state. Further, we include as a review some covariance matrix methods for which our results are particularly relevant, paying special attention to those related to the measurement of entanglement. Finally, we prove that the Duan criterion for entanglement is also applicable to fermionic systems.