Dynamics of Open Quantum Systems II, Markovian Approximation

A finite-dimensional quantum system is coupled to a bath of oscillators in thermal equilibrium at temperature T>0. We show that for fixed, small values of the coupling constant λ, the true reduced dynamics of the system is approximated by the completely positive, trace preserving Markovian semigroup generated by the Davies-Lindblad generator. The difference between the true and the Markovian dynamics is O(|λ|1/4) for all times, meaning that the solution of the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad master equation is approximating the true dynamics to accuracy O(|λ|1/4) for all times. Our method is based on a recently obtained expansion of the full system-bath propagator. It applies to reservoirs with correlation functions decaying in time as 1/t4 or faster, which is a significant improvement relative to the previously required exponential decay.

Transfer-tensor description of memory effects in open-system dynamics and multi-time statistics

The non-Markovianity of an arbitrary open quantum system is analyzed in reference to the multi-time statistics given by its monitoring at discrete times. On the one hand, we exploit the hierarchy of inhomogeneous transfer tensors, which provides us with relevant information about the role of correlations between the system and the environment in the dynamics. The connection between the transfer-tensor hierarchy and the CP-divisibility property is then investigated, by showing to what extent quantum Markovianity can be linked to a description of the open-system dynamics by means of the composition of 1-step transfer tensors only. On the other hand, we introduce the set of stochastic transfer tensor transformations associated with local measurements on the open system at different times and conditioned on the measurement outcomes. The use of the transfer-tensor formalism accounts for different kinds of memory effects in the multi-time statistics and allows us to compare them on a similar footing with the memory effects present in non-monitored non-Markovian dynamics, as we illustrate on a spin-boson case study.

Eternally non-Markovian dynamics of a qubit interacting with a single-photon wavepacket

An evolution of a two-level system (qubit) interacting with a single-photon wave packet is analyzed. It is shown that a hierarchy of master equations gives rise to phase covariant qubit evolution. The temporal correlations in the input field induce nontrivial memory effects for the evolution of a qubit. It is shown that in the resonant case whenever time-local generator is regular (does not display singularities) the qubit evolution never displays information backflow. However, in general the generator might be highly singular leading to intricate non-Markovian effects. A detailed analysis of the exponential profile is provided which allows to illustrate all characteristic feature of the qubit evolution.

The time-fractional kinetic equation for the non-equilibrium processes

In this study, we consider the non-Markovian dynamics of the generic non-equilibrium kinetic process. We summarize the generalized master equation, the continuous and discrete forms of the time-fractional diffusion equation. Using path integral formulation, we generalized the solutions of the Markovian system to the non-Markovian for the non-equilibrium kinetic processes. Then, we obtain the time-fractional kinetic equation for the non-equilibrium systems in terms of free energy. Finally, we introduce a time-fractional equation to analyse time evolution of the open probability for the deformed voltage-gated ion-channel system as an example.

Non-Markovian Dynamics of Geometric Quantum Discord in a Double Quantum Dot System

In this paper, we study the geometric quantum discord dynamics of the double quantum dot charge qubit in the non-Markovian environment. We apply the non-perturbative non-Markovian quantum state diffusion method to obtain the exact master equation of the double quantum dot system coupled to two independent non-zero temperature electronic baths. Then, we use this master equation to investigate the effects of non-Markovianity, inter-dot coupling strength and bath temperature on the dynamics of geometric quantum discord. Our studies show that the geometric quantum discord of a double quantum dot system can be modified and enhanced in some cases via these factors.