Stochastic process behind nonlinear thermodynamic quantum master equation. II. Simulation

Abstract

We simulate a piecewise deterministic Markovian jump process that represents an unraveling of a nonlinear quantum master equation describing the evolution of a quantum subsystem in contact with a heat bath. This process relies on running ensemble averages and state vectors normalized only on average. The latter causes the normalization of a small subset of trajectories to grow exponentially, resulting in numerical instability. We propose an efficient solution to this problem and illustrate the general ideas for a harmonic oscillator and a two-level system, each of them being weakly coupled to a heat reservoir. Our findings lay the foundation for a powerful simulation technique for dissipative quantum systems surrounded by general classical nonequilibrium environments.