A classical appraisal of quantum definitions of non-Markovian dynamics

Abstract

We consider the issue of non-Markovianity of a quantum dynamics starting from a comparison with the classical definition of Markovian processes. We point to the fact that two sufficient but not necessary signatures of non-Markovianity of a classical process find their natural quantum counterpart in recently introduced measures of quantum non-Markovianity. This behaviour is analysed in detail for quantum dynamics which can be built taking as input a class of classical processes.