Unfolding system-environment correlation in open quantum systems : Revisiting master equations and the Born approximation

Loading...
Thumbnail Image

Access rights

openAccess

URL

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2024-01

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Language

en

Pages

14

Series

PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH, Volume 6, issue 1, pp. 1-14

Abstract

Understanding system-environment correlations in open quantum systems is vital for various quantum information and technology applications. However, these correlations are often overlooked or hidden in derivations of open-quantum-system master equations, especially when applying the Born approximation. To address this issue, given a microscopic model, we demonstrate how to retain system-environment correlation within commonly used master equations, such as the Markovian Lindblad, Redfield, second-order time convolutionless, second-order Nakajima-Zwanzig, and second-order universal Lindblad-like equations. We show that each master equation corresponds to a particular approximation on the system-environment correlation operator. In particular, our analysis exposes the form of the hidden system-environment correlation in the Markovian Lindblad equation derived using the Born approximation. We also identify that the processes leading to the Redfield equation yield an inaccurate initial-time system-environment correlation approximation. By fixing this problem, we propose a corrected Redfield equation with an improved prediction for early stages of the time evolution. We further illustrate our results in two examples, which imply that the second-order universal Lindblad-like equation captures correlation more accurately than the other standard master equations.

Description

Publisher Copyright: © 2024 authors. Published by the American Physical Society. Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Keywords

Other note

Citation

Babu, A P, Alipour, S, Rezakhani, A T & Ala-Nissila, T 2024, ' Unfolding system-environment correlation in open quantum systems : Revisiting master equations and the Born approximation ', PHYSICAL REVIEW RESEARCH, vol. 6, no. 1, 013243, pp. 1-14 . https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.013243