We generalize the classical theory of Brownian motion so as to reckon with non-Markovian effects on both Klein-Kramers and Smoluchowski equations. For a free particle and a harmonic oscillator, it is shown that such non-Markovian effects account for the differentiability of the Brownian trajectories as well as the breakdown of the energy equipartition of statistical mechanics at short times in some physical situations. This non-Markovian approach is also extended to look at anomalous diffusion. Next, we bring in the dynamical-quantization method for investigating open quantum systems, which does consist in quantizing the classical Brownian motion starting directly from our non-Markovian Klein-Kramers and Smoluchowski equations, without alluding to any model Hamiltonian. Accordingly, quantizing our non-Markovian Klein-Kramers in phase space gives rise to a non-Markovian quantum master equation in configuration space, whereas quantizing our non-Markovian Smoluchowski equation in configuration space leads to a non-Markovian quantum Smoluchowski equation in phase space. In addition, it is worth noticing that non-Markovian quantum Brownian motion takes place in presence of a generic environment (e.g. a non-thermal quantum fluid). As far as the special case of a heat bath comprising of quantum harmonic oscillators is concerned, a non-Markovian Caldeira-Leggett master equation and a thermal quantum Smoluchowski equation are derived and extended to bosonic and fermionic heat baths valid for all temperatures.
Dynamical aspects of quantum Brownian motion in a low temperature environment are investigated. We give a systematic calculation of quantum entanglement among two Brownian oscillators without invoking Born-Markov approximation widely used for the study of open systems. Our approach is suitable to probe short time dynamics at cold temperatures where many experiments on quantum information processing are performed.
We derive and solve analytically the non-Markovian master equation for harmonic quantum Brownian motion proving that, for weak system-reservoir couplings and high temperatures, it can be recast in the form of the master equation for a harmonic oscillator interacting with a squeezed thermal bath. This equivalence guarantees preservation of positivity of the density operator during the time evolution and allows one to establish a connection between the dynamics of Schrödinger cat states in squeezed environments and environment-induced decoherence in quantum Brownian motion.
We study the non-Markovian decoherence and disentanglement dynamics of dissipative quantum systems with special emphasis on non-Gaussian continuous variable systems. The dynamics are described by the Hu-Paz-Zhang master equation of quantum Brownian motion. The time evolution of the decoherence function of a single-mode superposition is compared to the concurrence of a two-mode entangled state. It is verified that moderate non-Markovian influences slow down the decay of interference fringes and quantum correlations, while strong non-Markovian effects resulting from an out-of-resonance bath can …
Stochastic Schr{ö}dinger equations for quantum trajectories offer an alternative and sometimes superior approach to the study of open quantum system dynamics. Here we show that recently established convolutionless non-Markovian stochastic Schr{ö}dinger equations may serve as a powerful tool for the derivation of convolutionless master equations for non-Markovian open quantum systems. The most interesting example is quantum Brownian motion (QBM) of a harmonic oscillator coupled to a heat bath of oscillators, one of the most-employed exactly soluble models of open system dynamics. We show explic…
We consider a model of non-Markovian Quantum Brownian motion that consists of an harmonic oscillator bilinearly coupled to a thermal bath, both via its position and momentum operators. We derive the master equation for such a model and we solve the equations of motion for a generic Gaussian system state. We then investigate the resulting evolution of the first and second moments for both an Ohmic and a super-Ohmic spectral density. In particular, we show that, irrespective of the specific form of the spectral density, the coupling with the momentum enhances the dissipation experienced by the s…
An original method to exactly solve the non-Markovian Master Equation describing the interaction of a single harmonic oscillator with a quantum environment in the weak coupling limit is reported. By using a superoperatorial approach we succeed in deriving the operatorial solution for the density matrix of the system. Our method is independent of the physical properties of the environment. We show the usefulness of our solution deriving explicit expressions for the dissipative time evolution of some observables of physical interest for the system, such as, for example, its mean energy.
Non-Markovian processes can often be turned Markovian by enlarging the set of variables. Here we show, by an explicit construction, how this can be done for the dynamics of a Brownian particle obeying the generalized Langevin equation. Given an arbitrary bath spectral density $J_{0}$, we introduce an orthogonal transformation of the bath variables into effective modes, leading stepwise to a semi-infinite chain with nearest-neighbor interactions. The transformation is uniquely determined by $J_{0}$ and defines a sequence $\{J_{n}\}_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ of residual spectral densities describing the…
The dissipative dynamics of a quantum Brownian particle is studied for different types of environment. We derive analytic results for the time evolution of the mean energy of the system for Ohmic, sub-Ohmic and super-Ohmic environments, without performing the Markovian approximation. Our results allow to establish a direct link between the form of the environmental spectrum and the thermalization dynamics. This in turn leads to a natural explanation of the microscopic physical processes ruling the system time evolution both in the short-time non-Markovian region and in the long-time Markovian …
Understanding the behaviour of a quantum system coupled to its environment is of fundamental interest in the general field of quantum technologies. It also has important repercussions on foundational problems in physics, such as the process of decoherence and the so-called quantum measurement problem. There have been many approaches to explore Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics within the framework of open quantum systems, but the richness of the ensuing dynamics is still not fully understood. In this paper we develop a non-Markovian extension of the standard Caldeira-Leggett model, based on…
We study quantum non-Markovian dynamics of the Caldeira-Leggett model, a prototypical model for quantum Brownian motion describing a harmonic oscillator linearly coupled to a reservoir of harmonic oscillators. Employing the exact analytical solution of this model one can determine the size of memory effects for arbitrary couplings, temperatures and frequency cutoffs. Here, quantum non-Markovianity is defined in terms of the flow of information between the open system and its environment, which is quantified through the Bures metric as distance measure for quantum states. This approach allows u…
A dynamical treatment of Markovian diffusion is presented and several applications discussed. The stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics is considered within this framework. A model for Brownian movement which includes second order quantum effects is derived.
All physical systems are to some extent open and interacting with their environment. This insight, basic as it may seem, gives rise to the necessity of protecting quantum systems from decoherence in quantum technologies and is at the heart of the emergence of classical properties in quantum physics. The precise decoherence mechanisms, however, are often unknown for a given system. In this work, we make use of an opto-mechanical resonator to obtain key information about spectral densities of its condensed-matter heat bath. In sharp contrast to what is commonly assumed in high-temperature quantu…
We obtain the analytical expression for the Kraus decomposition of the quantum map of an environment modeled by an arbitrary quadratic fermionic Hamiltonian acting on one or two qubits, and derive simple functions to check the non-positivity of the intermediate map. These functions correspond to two different sufficient criteria for non-Markovianity. In the particular case of an environment represented by the Ising Hamiltonian, we discuss the two sources of non-Markovianity in the model, one due to the finite size of the lattice, and another due to the kind of interactions.
The dynamics of a typical open quantum system, namely a quantum Brownian particle in a harmonic potential, is studied focussing on its non-Markovian regime. Both an analytic approach and a stochastic wave function approach are used to describe the exact time evolution of the system. The border between two very different dynamical regimes, the Lindblad and non-Lindblad regimes, is identified and the relevant physical variables governing the passage from one regime to the other are singled out. The non-Markovian short time dynamics is studied in detail by looking at the mean energy, the squeezin…
Decoherence in Markovian systems can result indirectly from the action of a system Hamiltonian which is usually fixed and unavoidable. Here, we show that in general in Markovian systems, because of the system Hamiltonian, quantum information decoheres. We give conditions for the system Hamiltonian that must be satisfied if coherence is to be preserved. Finally, we show how to construct robust subspaces for quantum information processing.
We show theoretically how the periodic coupling between an engineered reservoir and a quantum Brownian particle leads to the formation of a dynamical steady state which is characterized by an effective temperature above the temperature of the environment. The average steady state energy of the system has a higher value than expected from the environmental properties. The system experiences repeatedly a non-Markovian behavior -- as a consequence the corresponding effective decay for long evolution times is always on average stronger than the Markovian one. We also highlight the consequences of …
Non-Markovian master equations describe general open quantum systems when no approximation is made. We provide the exact closed master equation for the class of Gaussian, completely positive, trace preserving, non-Markovian dynamics. This very general result allows to investigate a vast variety of physical systems. We show that the master equation for non-Markovian quantum Brownian motion is a particular case of our general result. Furthermore, we derive the master equation unraveled by a non-Markovian, dissipative stochastic Schrödinger equation, paving the way for the analysis of dissipative…
The time evolution of quantum correlations of entangled two-mode continuous variable states is examined in single-reservoir as well as two-reservoir models, representing noisy correlated or uncorrelated non-Markovian quantum channels. For this purpose the model of quantum Brownian motion is extended. Various separability criteria for Gaussian continuous variable systems are applied. In both types of reservoir models moderate non-Markovian effects prolong the separability time scales. However, in these models the properties of the stationary state may differ. In the two-reservoir model the init…
Hamiltonian quantum computing, such as the adiabatic and holonomic models, can be protected against decoherence using an encoding into stabilizer subspace codes for error detection and the addition of energy penalty terms. This method has been widely studied since it was first introduced by Jordan, Farhi, and Shor (JFS) in the context of adiabatic quantum computing. Here we extend the original result to general Markovian environments, not necessarily in Lindblad form. We show that the main conclusion of the original JFS study holds under these general circumstances: assuming a physically reaso…
We study the dynamics of an optical mode in a cavity with a movable mirror subject to quantum Brownian motion. We study the phase noise power spectrum of the output light, and we describe the mirror Brownian motion, which is responsible for the thermal noise contribution, using the quantum Langevin approach. We show that the standard quantum Langevin equations, supplemented with the appropriate non-Markovian correlation functions, provide an adequate description of Brownian motion.
We put forward a measure based on Gaussian steering to quantify the non-Markovianity of continuous-variable (CV) Gaussian quantum channels. We employ the proposed measure to assess and compare the non-Markovianity of a quantum Brownian motion (QBM) channel, originating from the interaction with Ohmic and sub-Ohmic environments with spectral densities described by a Lorentz-Drude cutoff, both at high and low temperatures, showing that sub-Ohmic, high temperature environments lead to highly non-Markovian evolution, with cyclic backflows of Gaussian steerability from the environment to the system…
By employing the full counting statistics formalism, we characterize the first moment of energy that is exchanged during a generally non-Markovian evolution in non-driven continuous variables systems. In particular, we focus on the evaluation of the energy flowing back from the environment into the open quantum system. We apply these results to the quantum Brownian motion, where these quantities are calculated both analytically, under the weak coupling assumption, and numerically also in the strong coupling regime. Finally, we characterize the non-Markovianity of the reduced dynamics through a…
Using random matrices, we study the reduced dynamics of a two level system interacting with a generic environment. In the weak coupling limit, the result can be obtained directly from known results for purity decay, and result in Markovian dynamics. We then focus on the case of strong coupling, when the dynamics is known to be non-Markovian. In this regime, the coupling dominates over the local parts of the Hamiltonian, and thus we treat the latter as a perturbation of the former. With the help of the linear response approximation, this allows us to obtain an analytical description of the redu…
The decoherence of two initially entangled qubits in a non-Markovian reservoir has been investigated exactly without Born Markovian approximation and rotating-wave approximation(RWA). The non-perturbative quantum master equation is derived and its exact solution is obtained. The decoherence behaviors of two qubits, initially entangled in Bell states, has been investigated in three different cases of parameters. The results show that the counter-rotating wave terms have great influence on the decoherence behavior, and there are differences between the exact solution of the Hamiltonian with RWA …
We present a perturbation theory for non-Markovian quantum state diffusion (QSD), the theory of diffusive quantum trajectories for open systems in a bosonic environment [Physical Review {\bf A 58}, 1699, (1998)]. We establish a systematic expansion in the ratio between the environmental correlation time and the typical system time scale. The leading order recovers the Markov theory, so here we concentrate on the next-order correction corresponding to first-order non-Markovian master equations. These perturbative equations greatly simplify the general non-Markovian QSD approach, and allow for e…
We present a nonlinear stochastic Schroedinger equation for pure states describing non-Markovian diffusion of quantum trajectories. It provides an unravelling of the evolution of a quantum system coupled to a finite or infinite number of harmonic oscillators, without any approximation. Its power is illustrated by several examples, including measurement-like situations, dissipation, and quantum Brownian motion. In some examples, we treat the environment phenomenologically as an infinite reservoir with fluctuations of arbitrary correlation. In other examples the environment consists of a finite …
We introduce the Markovian matrix product density operator, which is a special subclass of the matrix product density operator. We show that the von Neumann entropy of such ansatz can be computed efficiently on a classical computer. This is possible because one can efficiently certify that the global state forms an approximate quantum Markov chain by verifying a set of inequalities. Each of these inequalities can be verified in time that scales polynomially with the bond dimension and the local Hilbert space dimension. The total number of inequalities scale linearly with the system size. We us…
We study how the number of employed modes impacts the ability to witness non-Markovian evolutions via correlation backflows in continuous-variable quantum dynamics. We first prove the existence of non-Markovian Gaussian evolutions that do not show any revivals in the correlations between the mode evolving through the dynamics and a single ancillary mode. We then demonstrate how this scenario radically changes when two ancillary modes are considered. Indeed, we show that the same evolutions can show correlation backflows along a specific bipartition when three-mode states are employed, and wher…
Quantum Brownian oscillator model (QBM), in the Fock-space representation, can be viewed as a multi-level spin-boson model. At sufficiently low temperature, the oscillator degrees of freedom are dynamically reduced to the lowest two levels and the system behaves effectively as a two-level (E2L) spin-boson model (SBM) in this limit. We discuss the physical mechanism of level reduction and analyze the behavior of E2L-SBM from the QBM solutions. The availability of close solutions for the QBM enables us to study the non-Markovian features of decoherence and leakage in a SBM in the non-perturbativ…
In this paper, we study the dynamical properties of two coupled quantum harmonic oscillators coupled with bosonic non-Markovian environment both in position and momentum. We deduce the exact analytical master equation using Quantum State Diffusion method and give the quantum trajectory description when the control is added to the system by applying interaction between two harmonic oscillators. With numerical simulation, we compare the evolution of entanglement under different controlling effects. At last, we use nonlinear Quantum State Diffusion method to strengthen our above results by gettin…
Quantum Brownian motion of a harmonic oscillator in the Markovian approximation is described by the respective Caldeira-Leggett master equation. This master equation can be brought into Lindblad form by adding a position diffusion term to it. The coefficient of this term is either customarily taken to be the lower bound dictated by the Dekker inequality or determined by more detailed derivations on the linearly damped quantum harmonic oscillator. In this paper, we explore the theoretical possibilities of determining the position diffusion term's coefficient by analyzing the entropy production …
We introduce a non-Markovianity measure for continuous variable open quantum systems based on the idea put forward in H.-P. Breuer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett.\textbf{103}, 210401 (2009), i.e., by quantifying the flow of information from the environment back to the open system. Instead of the trace distance we use here the fidelity to assess distinguishability of quantum states. We employ our measure to evaluate non-Markovianity of two paradigmatic Gaussian channels: the purely damping channel and the quantum Brownian motion channel with Ohmic environment. We consider different classes of Gaussian…
Quantum emitters (QEs) coupled to structured baths can localize multiple photons around them and form qubit-photon bound states. In the Markovian or weak coupling regime, the interaction of QEs through these single-photon bound states is known to lead to effective many-body QE Hamiltonians with tuneable but yet perturbative interactions. In this work we study the emergence of such models in the non-Markovian or strong coupling regime in different excitation subspaces. The effective models for the non-Markovian regime with up to three excitations are characterized using analytical methods, unco…
By using the effective Hamiltonian approach, we present a self-consistent framework for the analysis of geometric phases and dynamically stable decoherence-free subspaces in open systems. Comparisons to the earlier works are made. This effective Hamiltonian approach is then extended to a non-Markovian case with the generalized Lindblad master equation. Based on this extended effective Hamiltonian approach, the non-Markovian master equation describing a dissipative two-level system is solved, an adiabatic evolution is defined and the corresponding adiabatic condition is given.
The "standard" Brownian motion master equation, used to describe thermal damping, is not completely positive, and does not admit a Monte Carlo method, important in numerical simulations. To eliminate both these problems one must add a term that generates additional position diffusion. He we show that one can obtain a completely positive simple quantum Brownian motion, efficiently solvable, without any extra diffusion. This is achieved by using a stochastic Schroedinger equation (SSE), closely analogous to Langevin's equation, that has no equivalent Markovian master equation. Considering a spec…
A dynamical decoupling scheme for the deterrence of errors in the non-Markovian (usually corresponding to low temperature, short time, and strong coupling) regimes suitable for qubits constructed out of a multilevel structure is studied. We use the effective spin-boson model (ESBM) introduced recently [K. Shiokawa and B. L. Hu, Phys. Rev. A70, 062106 (2004)] as a low temperature limit of the quantum Brownian oscillator model, where one can obtain exact solutions for a general environment with colored noises. In our decoupling scheme a train of pairs of strong pulses are used to evolve the inte…
Caldeira and Leggett (CL) in a seminal paper derived a master equation describing Markovian Quantum Brownian motion. Such an equation suffered of not being completely positive, and many efforts have been made to solve this issue. We show that, when a careful mathematical analysis is performed, the model considered by CL leads to a non dissipative master equation. We argue that the correct way to understand the master equation derived in the CL regime is to consider it non-Markovian. Moreover, we show that if one wants to provide a microscopic description of Quantum Brownian motion with the CL …
By using the quantum Yang-Baxterization approach to the three different Hamiltonians, we investigate the behavior of the quantum Fisher information (QFI) under the actions of these Hamiltonians on the different two-qubit input states and by estimating the meaningful parameter $φ$. We address the overall estimation properties by evaluating the QFI for the whole system undergone different unitary evolution. The results show that the behavior of the QFI depends on the choice of the initial states. Choosing the optimal input states can improve the precision of quantum parameter estimation. On the …
Quantum non-Markovianity modifies the environmental decoherence of a system. This situation is enriched in complex systems owing to interactions among subsystems. We consider the problem of distinguishing the multiple sources of non-Markovianity using a simple power spectrum technique, applied to a qubit interacting with another qubit via a Jaynes-Cummings type Hamiltonian and simultaneously subjected to some well known noise channels, such as, the random telegraph noise and non-Markovian amplitude damping, which exhibit both Markovian as well as non-Markovian dynamics under different paramete…
It is argued that the existing schemes of fault-tolerant quantum computation designed for discrete-time models and based on quantum error correction fail for continuous-time Hamiltonian models even with Markovian noise.
We analyse the problem of estimating a scalar parameter $g$ that controls the Hamiltonian of a quantum system subject to Markovian noise. Specifically, we place bounds on the growth rate of the quantum Fisher information with respect to $g$, in terms of the Lindblad operators and the $g$-derivative of the Hamiltonian $H$. Our new bounds are not only more generally applicable than those in the literature -- for example, they apply to systems with time-dependent Hamiltonians and/or Lindblad operators, and to infinite-dimensional systems such as oscillators -- but are also tighter in the settings…
We investigate the asymptotic dynamics of exact quantum Brownian motion. We find that non-Markovianity can persist in the long-time limit, and that in general the asymptotic behaviour depends strongly on the system-environment coupling and the spectral density of the bath.
In the previous paper, it has been proved that elastic scattering processes of two quantum particles are always accompanied with nonlocal processes. Furthermore, it is found that setting an additional Hamiltonian after the originally scattering one can help to describe the two type of processes in a united frame. Here we discuss the contribution of this additional Hamiltonian to irreversible process in isolated quantum systems. The use of the Hamiltonian can induce the non-Markovian Langevin equation, showing a complex memory effect, and thus revealing the irreversible essence of isolated syst…
We consider the non-Markovian Langevin evolution of a dissipative dynamical system in quantum mechanics in the path integral formalism. After discussing the role of the frequency cutoff for the interaction of the system with the heat bath and the kernel and noise correlator that follow from the most common choices, we derive an analytic expansion for the exact non-Markovian dissipation kernel and the corresponding colored noise in the general case that is consistent with the fluctuation-dissipation theorem and incorporates systematically non-local corrections. We illustrate the modifications t…
