We present the non-Markovian generalization of the widely used stochastic Schrodinger equation. Our result allows to describe open quantum systems in terms of stochastic state vectors rather than density operators, without approximation. Moreover, it unifies two recent independent attempts towards a stochastic description of non-Markovian open systems, based on path integrals on the one hand and coherent states on the other. The latter approach utilizes the analytical properties of coherent states and enables a microscopic interpretation of the stochastic states. The alternative first approach is based on the general description of open systems using path integrals as originated by Feynman and Vernon.
An important and well established area of quantum optics is the theory of Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations (or by another name quantum trajectory theory). Recently stochastic Schrödinger equations have been developed for non-Markovian systems. In this paper we extend the current known stochastic Schrödinger equations for non-Markovian systems to include the position unraveling. We also discuss and illustrate that this stochastic Schrödinger equation can have an interpretation under both the orthodox and the de Broglie-Bohm hidden variable interpretation of quantum mechanics. We concl…
Firstly, the Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations are presented, together with their connections with the theory of measurements in continuous time. Moreover, the stochastic evolution equations are translated into a simulation algorithm, which is illustrated by two concrete examples - the damped harmonic oscillator and a two-level atom with homodyne photodetection. Then, we consider how to introduce memory effects in the stochastic Schrödinger equation via coloured noise. Specifically, the approach by using the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process is illustrated and a simulation for the non-Markov…
We investigate the non-Markovian quantum dynamics of a hybrid open system consisting of one qubit and one qutrit by employing a stochastic Schrödinger equation to generate diffusive quantum trajectories. We have established an exact quantum state diffusion (QSD) equation for the dissipative qubit-qutrit system coupled to a bosonic heat bath at zero temperature. As an important application, the non-Markovian QSD equation is employed to simulate the entanglement decay and generation measured by negativity. Finally, some steady state properties of the hybrid system are also discussed.
Non-Markovian environment induced Schrödinger cat state transfer in an optical Newton's cradle
Fujian Key Laboratory of Quantum Information and Quantum Optics (Fuzhou University)（福建量子信息与量子光学重点实验室）；Department of Physics, Fuzhou University（福州大学物理系）
In this paper we present a perturbative procedure that allows one to numerically solve diffusive non-Markovian Stochastic Schrödinger equations, for a wide range of memory functions. To illustrate this procedure numerical results are presented for a classically driven two level atom immersed in a environment with a simple memory function. It is observed that as the order of the perturbation is increased the numerical results for the ensembled average state $ρ_{\rm red}(t)$ approach the exact reduced state found via Imamoglu's enlarged system method [Phys. Rev. A. 50, 3650 (1994)].
A natural non-Markovian extension of the theory of white noise quantum trajectories is presented. In order to introduce memory effects in the formalism an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck coloured noise is considered as the output driving process. Under certain conditions a random Hamiltonian evolution is recovered. Moreover, non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations which unravel non-Markovian master equations are derived.
Do stochastic Schrödinger equations, also known as unravelings, have a physical interpretation? In the Markovian limit, where the system {\em on average} obeys a master equation, the answer is yes. Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations generate quantum trajectories for the system state conditioned on continuously monitoring the bath. For a given master equation, there are many different unravelings, corresponding to different sorts of measurement on the bath. In this paper we address the non-Markovian case, and in particular the sort of stochastic \sch equation introduced by Strunz, Di\' …
Do diffusive non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations (SSEs) for open quantum systems have a physical interpretation? In a recent paper [Phys. Rev. A 66, 012108 (2002)] we investigated this question using the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics. We found that the solution of a non-Markovian SSE represents the state the system would be in at that time if a measurement was performed on the environment at that time, and yielded a particular result. However, the linking of solutions at different times to make a trajectory is, we concluded, a fiction. In this paper we investigate thi…
Non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations (NMSSE) are important tools in quantum mechanics, from the theory of open systems to foundations. Yet, in general, they are but formal objects: their solution can be computed numerically only in some specific cases or perturbatively. This article is focused on the NMSSE themselves rather than on the open-system evolution they unravel and aims at making them less abstract. Namely, we propose to write the stochastic realizations of linear NMSSE as averages over the solutions of an auxiliary equation with an additional random field. Our method yields…
We present embedding procedures for the non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations, arising from studies of quantum systems coupled with bath environments. By introducing auxiliary wave functions, it is demonstrated that the non-Markovian dynamics can be embedded in extended, but Markovian, stochastic models. Two embedding procedures are presented. The first method leads to nonlinear stochastic equations, the implementation of which is much more efficient than the non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations. The stochastic Schrödinger equations obtained from the second procedure involve…
Since the first derivation of non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations, their interpretation has been contentious. In a recent Letter [Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 080401 (2008)], Diósi claimed to prove that they generate "true single system trajectories [conditioned on] continuous measurement". In this Letter we show that his proof is fundamentally flawed: the solution to his non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equation at any particular time can be interpreted as a conditioned state, but joining up these solutions as a trajectory creates a fiction.
General open quantum systems display memory features, their master equations are non-Markovian. We show that the subclass of Gaussian non-Markovian open system dynamics is tractable in a depth similar to the Markovian class. The structure of master equations exhibits a transparent generalization of the Lindblad structure. We find and parametrize the class of stochastic Schrödinger equations that unravel a given master equation, such class was before known for Markovian systems only. We show that particular non-Markovian unravellings known in the literature are special cases of our class.
It is shown that non-Markovian master equations for an open system which are local in time can be unravelled through a piecewise deterministic quantum jump process in its Hilbert space. We derive a stochastic Schrödinger equation that reveals how non-Markovian effects are manifested in statistical correlations between different realizations of the process. Moreover, we demonstrate that possible violations of the positivity of approximate master equations are closely connected to singularities of the stochastic Schrödinger equation, which could lead to important insights into the structural cha…
A prominent tool to study the dynamics of open quantum systems is the reduced density matrix. Yet, approaching open quantum systems by means of state vectors has well known computational advantages. In this respect, the physical meaning of the so-called conditional states in Markovian and non-Markovian scenarios has been a topic of recent debate in the construction of stochastic Schrödinger equations. We shed light on this discussion by acknowledging the Bohmian conditional wavefunction as the proper mathematical object to represent, in terms of state vectors, an arbitrary subset of degrees of…
We consider an open model possessing a Markovian quantum stochastic limit and derive the limit stochastic Schrodinger equations for the wave function conditioned on indirect observations using only the von Neumann projection postulate. We show that the diffusion (Gaussian) situation is universal as a result of the central limit theorem with the quantum jump (Poissonian) situation being an exceptional case. It is shown that, starting from the correponding limiting open systems dynamics, the theory of quantum filtering leads to the same equations, therefore establishing consistency of the quantu…
We derive a stochastic hierarchy of matrix product states (HOMPS) for non-Markovian dynamics in open quantum system at finite temperature, which is numerically exact and efficient. HOMPS is obtained from the recently developed stochastic hierarchy of pure states (HOPS) by expressing HOPS in terms of formal creation and annihilation operators. The resulting stochastic first order differential equation is then formulated in terms of matrix product states and matrix product operators. In this way the exponential complexity of HOPS can be reduced to scale polynomial with the number of particles. T…
We demonstrate the relevance of complex Gaussian stochastic processes to the stochastic state vector description of non-Markovian open quantum systems. These processes express the general Feynman-Vernon path integral propagator for open quantum systems as the classical ensemble average over stochastic pure state propagators in a natural way. They are the coloured generalization of complex Wiener processes in quantum state diffusion stochastic Schrodinger equations.
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…
Principles of monitoring non-Markovian open quantum systems are analyzed. We use the field representation of the environment (Gardiner and Collet, 1985) for the separation of its memory and detector part, respectively. We claim the system-plus-memory compound becomes Markovian, the detector part is tractable by standard Markovian monitoring. Because of non-Markovianity, only the mixed state of the system can be predicted, the pure state of the system can be retrodicted. We present the corresponding non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equation.
We reconsider the non-Markovian time-continuous measurement of a Heisenberg observable x and show for the first time that it can be realized by an infinite set of entangled von Neumann detectors. The concept of continuous read-out is introduced and used to re-derive the non-Markovian stochastic Schrodinger equation. We can prove that, contrary to recent doubts, the resulting non-Markovian quantum trajectories are true single system trajectories and correspond to the continuous measurement of a retarded functional of x. However, the generic non-Markovian trajectories are mixed state trajectorie…
It is shown that the exact dynamics of a composite quantum system can be represented through a pair of product states which evolve according to a Markovian random jump process. This representation is used to design a general Monte Carlo wave function method that enables the stochastic treatment of the full non-Markovian behavior of open quantum systems. Numerical simulations are carried out which demonstrate that the method is applicable to open systems strongly coupled to a bosonic reservoir, as well as to the interaction with a spin bath. Full details of the simulation algorithms are given, …
In this paper we present an exact Grassmann stochastic Schrödinger equation for the dynamics of an open fermionic quantum system coupled to a reservoir consisting of a finite or infinite number of fermions. We use this stochastic approach to derive the exact master equation for a fermionic system strongly coupled to electronic reservoirs. The generality and applicability of this Grassmann stochastic approach is justified and exemplified by several quantum open system problems concerning quantum decoherence and quantum transport for both vacuum and finite-temperature fermionic reservoirs. We sh…
We consider open quantum systems with factorized initial states, providing the structure of the reduced system dynamics, in terms of environment cumulants. We show that such completely positive (CP) and trace preserving (TP) maps can be unraveled by linear stochastic Schrödinger equations (SSEs) characterized by sets of colored stochastic processes (with n-th order cumulants). We obtain both the conditions such that the SSEs provide CPTP dynamics, and those for unraveling an open system dynamics. We then focus on Gaussian non-Markovian unravellings, whose known structure displays a functional …
On the non-Markovian quantum stochastic network dynamics
The Chinese University of Hong Kong（香港中文大学）；The Hong Kong Polytechnic University（香港理工大学）；The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Shenzhen Research Institute（香港理工大学深圳研究院）
By starting from the stochastic Schrödinger equation and quantum trajectory theory, we introduce memory effects by considering stochastic adapted coefficients. As an example of a natural non-Markovian extension of the theory of white noise quantum trajectories we use an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck coloured noise as the output driving process. Under certain conditions a random Hamiltonian evolution is recovered. Moreover, we show that our non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations unravel some master equations with memory kernels.
We provide the exact analytic solution of the stochastic Schrödinger equation describing an harmonic oscillator interacting with a non-Markovian and dissipative environment. This result represents an arrival point in the study of non-Markovian dynamics via stochastic differential equations. It is also one of the few exactly solvable models, for infinite dimensional systems. We compute the Green's function; in the case of a free particle, and with an exponentially correlated noise, we discuss the evolution of Gaussian wave functions.
Open quantum system interacting with structured environment is important and manifests non- Markovian behavior, which was conventionally studied using quantum trajectory stochastic method. In this paper, by dividing the effects of the environment into two parts, we propose a deterministic method without using quantum trajectory. This method is more efficient and accurate than stochastic method in most Markovian and non-Markovian cases. We also extend this method to the generalized Lindblad master equation.
In this paper we investigate non-Markovian evolution of a two-level system (qubit) in a bosonic bath under influence of an external classical fluctuating environment. The interaction with the bath has the Lorentzian spectral density, and the fluctuating environment (stochastic field) is represented by a set of Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes. Each of the subenvironments of the composite environment is able to induce non-Markovian dynamics of the two-level system. By means of the numerically exact method of hierarchical equations of motion, we study dependence of the steady states of the two-level…
A generalization of the stochastic wave function method to quantum master equations which are not in Lindblad form is developed. The proposed stochastic unravelling is based on a description of the reduced system in a doubled Hilbert space and it is shown, that this method is capable of simulating quantum master equations with negative transition rates. Non-Markovian effects in the reduced systems dynamics can be treated within this approach by employing the time-convolutionless projection operator technique. This ansatz yields a systematic perturbative expansion of the reduced systems dynamic…
By modeling the interaction of an open quantum system with its environment through a natural generalization of the classical concept of continuous time random walk, we derive and characterize a class of non-Markovian master equations whose solution is a completely positive map. The structure of these master equations is associated with a random renewal process where each event consist in the application of a superoperator over a density matrix. Strong non-exponential decay arise by choosing different statistics of the renewal process. As examples we analyze the stochastic and averaged dynamics…
We treat several key stochastic equations for non-Markovian open quantum system dynamics and present a formalism for finding solutions to them via canonical perturbation theory, without making the Born-Markov or rotating wave approximations (RWA). This includes master equations of the (asymptotically) stationary, periodic, and time-nonlocal type. We provide proofs on the validity and meaningfulness of the late-time perturbative master equation and on the preservation of complete positivity despite a general lack of Lindblad form. More specifically, we show how the algebraic generators satisfy …
In the classical domain, it is well-known that divisibility does not imply that a stochastic process is Markovian. However, for quantum processes, divisibility is often considered to be synonymous with Markovianity. We show that completely positive (CP) divisible quantum processes can still involve non-Markovian temporal correlations, that we then fully classify using the recently developed process tensor formalism, which generalizes the theory of stochastic processes to the quantum domain.
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 develop a notion of stochastic quantum trajectories. First, we construct a basis set of trajectories, called elementary trajectories, and go on to show that any quantum dynamical process, including those that are non-Markovian, can be expressed as a linear combination of this set. We then show that the set of processes divide into two natural classes: those that can be expressed as convex mixture of elementary trajectories and those that cannot be. The former are shown to be entanglement breaking processes (in each step), while the latter are dubbed coherent processes. This division of proc…
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 investigate the role of coherence and Markovianity in finding an answer to the question whether the outcomes of a projectively measured quantum stochastic process are compatible with a classical stochastic process. For this purpose we put forward an operationally motivated definition of incoherent dynamics applicable to any open system's dynamics. For non-degenerate observables described by rank-1 projective measurements we show that classicality always implies incoherent dynamics, whereas the converse is only true for invertible Markovian (but not necessarily time-homogeneous) dynamics. Fo…
The interrelationship between the non-Markovian stochastic Schrödinger equations and the corresponding non-Markovian master equations is investigated in the finite temperature regimes. We show that the general finite temperature non-Markovian trajectories can be used to derive the corresponding non-Markovian master equations. A simple, yet important solvable example is the well-known damped harmonic oscillator model in which a harmonic oscillator is coupled to a finite temperature reservoir in the rotating wave approximation. The exact convolutionless master equation for the damped harmonic os…
The non-Markovian dynamics of a three-level quantum system coupled to a bosonic environment is a difficult problem due to the lack of an exact dynamic equation such as a master equation. We present for the first time an exact quantum trajectory approach to a dissipative three-level model. We have established a convolutionless stochastic Schrödinger equation called time-local quantum state diffusion (QSD) equation without any approximations, in particular, without Markov approximation. Our exact time-local QSD equation opens a new avenue for exploring quantum dynamics for a higher dimensional q…
It is known that the dynamical evolution of a system, from an initial tensor product state of system and environment, to any two later times, t1,t2 (t2>t1), are both completely positive (CP) but in the intermediate times between t1 and t2 it need not be CP. This reveals the key to the Markov (if CP) and nonMarkov (if it is not CP) avataras of the intermediate dynamics. This is brought out here in terms of the quantum stochastic map A and the associated dynamical map B -- without resorting to master equation approaches. We investigate these features with four examples which have entirely differ…
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, ind…
The separation of the Schrödinger equation into a Markovian and an interference term provides a new insight in the quantum dynamics of classically chaotic systems. The competition between these two terms determines the localized or diffusive character of the dynamics. In the case of the Kicked Rotor, we show how the constrained maximization of the entropy implies exponential localization.
The exact dynamics of a system coupled to an environment can be described by an integro-differential stochastic equation of its reduced density. The influence of the environment is incorporated through a mean-field which is both stochastic and non-local in time and where the standard two-times correlation functions of the environment appear naturally. Since no approximation is made, the presented theory incorporates exactly dissipative and non-Markovian effects. Applications to the spin-boson model coupled to a heat-bath with various coupling regimes and temperature show that the presented sto…
We analyze several aspects of the transport dynamics in the LH1-RC core of purple bacteria, which consists basically in a ring of antenna molecules that transport the energy into a target molecule, the reaction center, placed in the center of the ring. We show that the periodicity of the system plays an important role to explain the relevance of the initial state in the transport efficiency. This picture is modified, and the transport enhanced for any initial state, when considering that molecules have different energies, and when including their interaction with the environment. We study this…
It is shown that by fitting a Markovian quantum master equation to the numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation of a system of two spin-1/2 particles interacting with a bath of up to 34 spin-1/2 particles, the former can describe the dynamics of the two-spin system rather well. The fitting procedure that yields this Markovian quantum master equation accounts for all non-Markovian effects in as much the general structure of this equation allows and yields a description that is incompatible with the Lindblad equation.
