The quantum-state diffusion model applied to open systems (Q4033665)

A model of quantum system interacting with its environment is proposed in which the system is represented by a state vector that satisfies a quantum state stochastic differential equation, derived from a density operator equation such as the Bloch equation, and consistent with it. The diffusion equation is presented as an Ito stochastic equation for a Wiener process. The advantages of the numerical solution of these equations over the direct numerical solution of the density operator equations are described. The numerical method using a Runge-Kutta method is applied to the nonlinear absorber, cascades of quantum transitions, second-harmonic generation and a measurement reduction process. The model provides graphic illustrations of these processes, with statistical fluctuations that mimic those of the experiments. General- purpose programs are written in Pascal and FORTRAN for the solution of any density operator equation in which the Hamiltonian, Lindblad and output operators are expressed as finite sums over finite products of creation and annihilation operators with one or two degrees of freedom. The examples were executed on a notebook computer. The stochastic differential equations originate from studies of the measurement problem in the foundations of quantum mechanics. The model is compared with the quantum-jump model of Dalibard, Carmichael and others, which originated among experimenters looking for intuitive pictures and rules of computation.