Open quantum systems. An introduction. (Q639258)

This light monograph (consisting of 97 pages in total) is suitable for an introductory textbook on the dynamics of open quantum systems. Moreover, the authors succeed in providing a connection with the current view point of the dynamics of open quantum systems in the light of quantum information science. In writing this book the authors are careful enough to get this material easily accessed by potentially interested people who are not experts in functional analysis or operator algebras. For instance, the authors restrict the proofs of important mathematical results to the case of finite dimensional systems. The prerequisite for the readers is only basic knowledge of quantum mechanics and quantum information theory. There are 167 references listed in total, including 50 monographs, in the bibliography. More precisely, in Chapter 1 the basic mathematical tools are introduced briefly. Included are Banach spaces, the exponential of a linear operator, Lie-Trotter product formula, semigroups, Hille-Yosida theorem, the time-inhomogeneous differential problem, the evolution operator and Dyson series. In Chapter 2 the time evolution in closed quantum systems is succinctly reviewed, where Schrödinger's equation is treated briefly. Chapter 3 deals with the general features of dynamics of open quantum systems and its mathematical properties. It explains dynamical maps and their positivity, universal dynamical maps (UDM), contractive UDM, the inverse of UDM and Markovian evolution. Typically, the dynamics of an open quantum system is not Markovian, because the reduced dynamical map is not a UDM from any intermediate time. However, if the term with correlations \(\rho_{corr}\) does not affect the dynamics so much, then a Markovian model can be a good approximate description of the time evolution. This will be analyzed deeply in Chapter 5. Before studying under which conditions an open quantum system can be approximately described by a Markovian evolution, the authors examine in Chapter 4 the structure and properties of a quantum Markovian process, which is a special important dynamics in open quantum systems. This chapter treats classical Markov process, Markovian master equation, quantum Markov evolution, Kossakowski conditions, and steady states of homogeneous Markov processes. The microscopic derivation of Markovian quantum dynamics is explained in Chapter 5, which is the highlight of the present book. When \(A\) is an open system and \(B\) plays the role of the environment, the Hamiltonian of the whole system is given by \(H = H_A + H_B + V\), where \(H_A\) (resp. \(H_B\)) is the Hamiltonian which governs the local dynamics of \(A\) (resp. \(B\)), and \(V\) stands for the interaction between both systems. \({\mathcal P}, {\mathcal Q}\) are the orthogonal projection operators in the combined Hilbert space \({\mathcal H} = {\mathcal H}_A \otimes {\mathcal H}_B\), satisfying \({\mathcal P}^2 = {\mathcal P}\), \({\mathcal Q}^2 = {\mathcal Q}\), and \({\mathcal P}{\mathcal Q} = {\mathcal Q}{\mathcal P} =0\) given by \({\mathcal P} \rho = \text{Tr}_B( \rho) \otimes \rho_B\), \({\mathcal Q}\rho = (1-{\mathcal P})\rho\) for \(\rho \in {\mathcal H}\), and \(\rho_B \in {\mathcal H}_B\) is a fixed state of the environment. They work in interaction picture with respect to the free Hamiltonians \[ \tilde{\rho}(t) = e^{ i ( H_A + H_B )t} \rho(t) e^{- i ( H_A + H_B) t}, \] and \(\text{Tr}_B [ \tilde{\rho}(t)]= \tilde{\rho}_A(t)\). Since the projection operators are presented under this operation, the usual von Neumann equation leads to \[ \frac{d}{dt} {\mathcal P} \tilde{\rho}(t) = - i {\mathcal P}[ \tilde{V}(t), \tilde{\rho}(t)]. \] When \(\nu(t) \cdot = -i [ \tilde{V}(t), \cdot]\), then the solution to the homogeneous equation \(\frac{d}{dt} {\mathcal Q} \tilde{\rho}(t) = {\mathcal Q} \nu(t) {\mathcal Q} \tilde{\rho}(t)\) is given by the propagator \[ {\mathcal G}(t,s) = {\mathcal T} \exp \left\{ \int_s^t dt' {\mathcal Q} \nu(t') \right\} \] with the time-ordering operator \({\mathcal T}\). One of the principal subjects in this chapter is to investigate the generalized Nakajima-Zwanzig (N-Z) equation. Under additional assumptions the N-Z equation yields to the reduced version of integro-differential equation \[ \frac{d}{dt} {\mathcal P} \tilde{\rho}(t) = \int_0^t du {\mathcal K}(t,u) {\mathcal P} \tilde{\rho}(u), \tag{1} \] with \({\mathcal K}(t,u) = {\mathcal P} \nu(t) {\mathcal K}(t,u) {\mathcal Q} \nu(u)\). If the kernel is homogeneous, \({\mathcal K}(t,u) = {\mathcal K}(t-u)\), then this equation (1) can be formally solved by a Laplace transformation, but this usually turns out to be an intractable problem in practice. Let us suppose that one wishes to transform this integro-differential equation in a Markovian master equation, but for that aim the typical variation time \(\tau_A\) of \(\tilde{\rho}(u)\) has to be much larger than some time \(\tau_B\), which characterizes the speed at which the kernel \({\mathcal K}(t,u)\) is decreasing when \(| t - u | \gg 1\). Of course, this kind of approximations intrinsically involve some assumptions on the size of \(B\) and the strength of the Hamiltonians, and there is in principle no warranty that the resulting differential equation become a Markovian master equation. However, careful studies prove two limiting procedures to be the case. These two limits are (i) the weak coupling limit; (ii) the singular coupling limit. An important thing is the fact that these two cases are sufficient conditions to get a Markovian evolution, but not necessary. Lastly, some methods for obtaining non-Markovian dynamics are briefly introduced in Chapter 6.