Quantum Optical Master Equation Research Articles

Unified master equation for molecules in phonon and radiation baths

We have developed a unified quantum optical master equation that includes the dissipative mechanisms of an impurity molecule in crystals. Our theory applies generally to polyatomic molecules where several vibrational modes give rise to intramolecular vibrational redistributions. The usual assumption on identical shapes of the nuclear potentials in ground and excited electronic states and the rotating wave approximation have been relaxed, i.e. the vibrational coordinates are different in the ground and excited states, with counter-rotating terms included for generality. Linear vibrational coupling to the lattice phonons accounts for dissipations via non-radiative transitions. The interaction of a molecule with photons includes Herzberg–Teller coupling as the first order non-Condon interaction where the transition dipole matrix elements depend linearly on vibrational coordinates. We obtain new cross terms as the result of mixing the terms from the zeroth-order (Condon) and first-order (non-Condon) approximations. The corresponding Lamb shifts for all Liouvilleans are derived explicitly including the contributions of counter-rotating terms. The computed absorption and emission spectra for carbon monoxide is in good agreement with experimental data. We use our unified model to obtain the spectra for nitrogen dioxide, demonstrating the capability of our theory to incorporate all typical dissipative relaxation and decoherence mechanisms for polyatomic molecules. The molecular quantum master equation is a promising theory for studying molecular quantum memory.

Non-Markovian Quantum Dynamics in a Squeezed Reservoir.

We study non-Markovian dynamics of an open quantum system system interacting with a nonstationary squeezed bosonic reservoir. We derive exact and approximate descriptions for the open system dynamics. Focusing on the spin boson model, we compare exact dynamics with Redfield theory and a quantum optical master equation for both short and long time dynamics and in non-Markovian and Markov regimes. The squeezing of the bath results in asymptotic oscillations in the stationary state, which are captured faithfully by the Redfield master equation in the case of weak coupling. Furthermore, we find that the bath squeezing direction modifies the effective system–environment coupling strength and, thus, the strength of the dissipation.

Dynamics of a trapped ion in a quantum gas: Effects of particle statistics

We study the quantum dynamics of an ion confined in a radiofrequency trap in interaction with either a Bose or spin-polarized Fermi gas. To this end, we derive quantum optical master equations in the limit of weak coupling and the Lamb-Dicke approximations. For the bosonic bath, we also include the so-called "Lamb-shift" correction to the ion trap due to the coupling to the quantum gas as well as the extended Fr\"ohlich interaction within the Bogolyubov approximation that have been not considered in previous studies. We calculate the ion kinetic energy for various atom-ion scattering lengths as well as gas temperatures by considering the intrinsic micromotion and we analyse the damping of the ion motion in the gas as a function of the gas temperature. We find that the ion's dynamics depends on the quantum statistics of the gas and that a fermionic bath enables to attain lower ionic energies.

Quantum speed of evolution in a Markovian bosonic environment

We present explicit evaluations of quantum speed limit times pertinent to the Markovian dynamics of an open continuous-variable system. Specifically, we consider the standard setting of a cavity mode of the quantum radiation field weakly coupled to a thermal bosonic reservoir. The evolution of the field state is ruled by the quantum optical master equation, which is known to have an exact analytic solution. Starting from a pure input state, we employ two indicators of how different the initial and evolved states are, namely, the fidelity of evolution and the Hilbert-Schmidt distance of evolution. The former was introduced by del Campo {\em et al.} who derived a time-independent speed limit for the evolution of a Markovian open system. We evaluate it for this field-reservoir setting, with an arbitrary input pure state of the field mode. The resultant formula is then specialized to the coherent and Fock states. On the other hand, we exploit an alternative approach that employs both indicators of evolution mentioned above. Their rates of change have the same upper bound, and consequently provide a unique time-dependent quantum speed limit. It turns out that the associate quantum speed limit time built with the Hilbert-Schmidt metric is tighter than the fidelity-based one. As apposite applications, we investigate the damping of the coherent and Fock states by using the characteristic functions of the corresponding evolved states. General expressions of both the fidelity and the Hilbert-Schmidt distance of evolution are obtained and analyzed for these two classes of input states. In the case of a coherent state, we derive accurate formulas for their common speed limit and the pair of associate limit times.

Relativistic quantum thermodynamics of moving systems

We analyse the thermodynamics of a quantum system in a trajectory of constant velocity that interacts with a static thermal bath. The latter is modeled by a massless scalar field in a thermal state. We consider two different couplings of the moving system to the heat bath, a coupling of the Unruh-DeWitt type and a coupling that involves the time derivative of the field. We derive the master equation for the reduced dynamics of the moving quantum system. It has the same form with the quantum optical master equation, but with different coefficients that depend on velocity. This master equation has a unique asymptotic state for each type of coupling, and it is characterized by a well-defined notion of heat-flow. Our analysis of the second law of thermodynamics leads to a surprising equivalence: a moving heat bath is physically equivalent to a mixture of heat baths at rest, each with a different temperature. There is no unique rule for the Lorentz transformation of temperature. We propose that Lorentz transformations of thermodynamic states are well defined in an extended thermodynamic space that is obtained as a convex hull of the standard thermodynamic space.

Quantum statistical mechanics, quantum probability and quantum characteristic function

The theory of quantum statistical mechanics is reviewed in the light of the quantum probability theory developed in recent years by mathematicians. We show that—which is our main motivation here—the former is a special model in the framework of the latter, by extending the characteristic function in the classical probability theory to the quantum probability theory based on the requirements of quantum statistical mechanics. We find that due to the fact that fundamental dynamical variables of a quantum system must respect certain commutation relations, one has to reform the classical characteristic function defined on a Euclidean space to a normalized, nonnegative definite function defined on a group which is generated by a Lie algebra formed from these commutation relations. Our key finding is that the group-theoretical characteristic function could be adopted to replace the density matrix commonly used in quantum statistical mechanics for representing a state of the quantum ensemble, and more than that, the new representation has some significant advantages in applications. To show its advantages compared with the conventional density matrix scenario, we illustrate its applications in: solving the master equation that describes the irreversible evolution of a quantum open system; determining the pointer states of a quantum open system; and expanding the density matrix with the pointer states. In particular, thanks to the quantum characteristic function, we are able to write down the solutions of the quantum-optical master equation explicitly, obtain its steady solutions and verify that the pointer states are exactly coherent states. Besides, the Caldeira-Leggett master equation for the quantum Brownian motion and its extension to the Lindblad type are also studied.

Accuracy assessment of perturbative master equations: Embracing nonpositivity

The reduced dynamics of an open quantum system obtained from an underlying microscopic Hamiltonian can in general only approximately be described by a time local master equation. The quality of that approximation depends primarily on the coupling strength and the structure of the environment. Various such master equations have been proposed with different aims. Choosing the most suitable one for a specific system is not straight forward. By focusing on the accuracy of the reduced dynamics we provide a thorough assessment for a selection of methods (Redfield Equation, Quantum Optical Master Equation, Coarse-Grained Master Equation, a related dynamical map approach and a partial-secular approximation). Whether or not an approach guarantees positivity we consider secondary, here. We use two qubits coupled to a Lorentzian environment in a spin-boson like fashion modeling a generic situation with various system and bath time scales. We see that, independent of the initial state, the simple Redfield Equation with time dependent coefficients is significantly more accurate than all other methods under consideration. We emphasize that positivity violation in the Redfield formalism becomes relevant only in a regime where any of the perturbative master equations considered here are rendered invalid anyway. This implies that the loss of positivity should in fact be welcomed as an important feature: it indicates the breakdown of the weak coupling assumption. In addition we present the various approaches in a self-contained way and use the behavior of their errors to provide further insight into the range of validity of each method.

Non-Gaussian macroscopic entanglement of motion in a hybrid electromechanical device

We propose a scheme for entangling the motion of two massive objects in a hybrid electromechanical architecture. The entanglement is generated due to the interaction of two mechanical oscillators with a mediating superconducting qubit. We show that the generated macroscopic entangled states are non-Gaussian and its lifetime is limited by coherence time of the qubit. The entanglement is attainable in a wide range of parameters with appropriate control of the qubit. We confirm performance of our scheme by numerically solving the quantum optical master equation including sources of noise. The effect of imperfections, such as asymmetries in the coupling rates as well as mechanical thermal noise are studied and shown how they affect the amount and lifetime of the entangled state. Due to the nonlinear nature of the qubit, the initial Gaussian state of mechanical resonators evolves into a quasi-stationary non-Gaussian state, which is essential for universal quantum information processing in continuous variable systems. This work, therefore, provides the first step towards a universal continuous variable quantum network.

Effects of noise-induced coherence on the fluctuations of current in quantum absorption refrigerators.

We investigate the effects of noise-induced coherence on average current and current fluctuations in a simple model of a quantum absorption refrigerator with degenerate energy levels. We describe and explain the differences and similarities between the system behavior when it operates in the classical regime, where the populations and coherences in the corresponding quantum optical master equation decouple in a suitably chosen basis, and in the quantum regime, where such a transformation does not exist. The differences between the quantum and the classical cases are observable only close to the maximum current regime, where the system steady-state becomes nonunique. This allows us to approximate the system dynamics by an analytical model based on a dichotomous process that explains the behavior of the average current both in the classical and in the quantum cases. Due to the nonuniqueness, the scaled cumulant generating function for the current at the vicinity of the critical point exhibits behavior reminiscent of the dynamical first-order phase transition. Unless the system parameters are fine-tuned to a single point in the parameter space, the corresponding current fluctuations are moderate in the quantum case and large in the classical case.

Heat distribution of a quantum harmonic oscillator

We consider a thermal quantum harmonic oscillator weakly coupled to a heat bath at a different temperature. We analytically study the quantum heat exchange statistics between the two systems using the quantum-optical master equation. We exactly compute the characteristic function of the heat distribution and show that it verifies the Jarzynski-W\'ojcik fluctuation theorem. We further evaluate the heat probability density in the limit of long thermalization times, both in the low and high temperature regimes, and investigate its time evolution by calculating its first two cumulants.

Derivation of the quantum-optical master equation based on coarse-graining of time

This is a derivation of the quantum-optical master equation using coarse-graining of time, which aims at exploring Markovian evolution from a microscopic perspective. Here, coarse-graining refers to finding an approximate evolution operator by integrating over a time step Δt, and considering the field states to be approximated by a similarly coarse-grained basis. By using these ideas and keeping the field states coarse-grained throughout the derivation, I explore the past-future independence of the quantum white noise formalism explicitly. Namely, that a quantum-optical system interacting with a vacuum field may be viewed as sequentially interacting with a series of initially uncorrelated and temporally coarse-grained vacuum states—this process leads to correlations only between the system and the time bins which have interacted with the system in the past, along with a Markovian evolution of the reduced system state. The derivation here may also be viewed in terms of a type of quantum-mechanical path integral.

Particle emission from open quantum systems

In this work, we discuss connections between different theoretical physics communities and their works, all related to systems that act as sources of particles such as photons, phonons, or electrons. Our interest is to understand how a low-dimensional quantum system driven by coherent fields, e.g. a two-level system, Jaynes-Cummings system, or photon pair source driven by a laser pulse, emits photons into a waveguide. Of particular relevance to solid-state sources is that we provide a way to include dissipation into the formalism for temporal-mode quantum optics. We will discuss the connections between temporal-mode quantum optics, scattering matrices, quantum stochastic calculus, continuous matrix product states and operators, and very traditional quantum optical concepts such as the Mandel photon counting formula and the Lindblad form of the quantum-optical master equation. We close with an example of how our formalism relates to single-photon sources with dephasing.

Single-photon absorption by single photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes

We provide a unified theoretical approach to the quantum dynamics of absorption of single photons and subsequent excitonic energy transfer in photosynthetic light-harvesting complexes. Our analysis combines a continuous mode -photon quantum optical master equation for the chromophoric system with the hierarchy of equations of motion describing excitonic dynamics in presence of non-Markovian coupling to vibrations of the chromophores and surrounding protein. We apply the approach to simulation of absorption of single-photon coherent states by pigment–protein complexes containing between one and seven chromophores, and compare with results obtained by excitation using a thermal radiation field. We show that the values of excitation probability obtained under single-photon absorption conditions can be consistently related to bulk absorption cross-sections. Analysis of the timescale and efficiency of single-photon absorption by light-harvesting systems within this full quantum description of pigment–protein dynamics coupled to a quantum radiation field reveals a non-trivial dependence of the excitation probability and the excited state dynamics induced by exciton–phonon coupling during and subsequent to the pulse, on the bandwidth of the incident photon pulse. For bandwidths equal to the spectral bandwidth of Chlorophyll a, our results yield an estimation of an average time of ∼0.09 s for a single chlorophyll chromophore to absorb the energy equivalent of one (single-polarization) photon under irradiation by single-photon states at the intensity of sunlight.

Qubit models of weak continuous measurements: markovian conditional and open-system dynamics

In this paper we approach the theory of continuous measurements and the associated unconditional and conditional (stochastic) master equations from the perspective of quantum information and quantum computing. We do so by showing how the continuous-time evolution of these master equations arises from discretizing in time the interaction between a system and a probe field and by formulating quantum-circuit diagrams for the discretized evolution. We then reformulate this interaction by replacing the probe field with a bath of qubits, one for each discretized time segment, reproducing all of the standard quantum-optical master equations. This provides an economical formulation of the theory, highlighting its fundamental underlying assumptions.

PsiQuaSP\u2013A library for efficient computation of symmetric open quantum systems

In a recent publication we showed that permutation symmetry reduces the numerical complexity of Lindblad quantum master equations for identical multi-level systems from exponential to polynomial scaling. This is important for open system dynamics including realistic system bath interactions and dephasing in, for instance, the Dicke model, multi-Λ system setups etc. Here we present an object-oriented C++ library that allows to setup and solve arbitrary quantum optical Lindblad master equations, especially those that are permutationally symmetric in the multi-level systems. PsiQuaSP (Permutation symmetry for identical Quantum Systems Package) uses the PETSc package for sparse linear algebra methods and differential equations as basis. The aim of PsiQuaSP is to provide flexible, storage efficient and scalable code while being as user friendly as possible. It is easily applied to many quantum optical or quantum information systems with more than one multi-level system. We first review the basics of the permutation symmetry for multi-level systems in quantum master equations. The application of PsiQuaSP to quantum dynamical problems is illustrated with several typical, simple examples of open quantum optical systems.

Thermalization of noninteracting quantum systems coupled to blackbody radiation: A Lindblad-based analysis

We study the thermalization of an ensemble of $N$ elementary, arbitrarily-complex, quantum systems, mutually noninteracting but coupled as electric or magnetic dipoles to a blackbody radiation. The elementary systems can be all the same or belong to different species, distinguishable or indistinguishable, located at fixed positions or having translational degrees of freedom. Even if the energy spectra of the constituent systems are nondegenerate, as we suppose, the ensemble unavoidably presents degeneracies of the energy levels and/or of the energy gaps. We show that, due to these degeneracies, a thermalization analysis performed by the popular quantum optical master equation reveals a number of serious pathologies, possibly including a lack of ergodicity. On the other hand, a consistent thermalization scenario is obtained by introducing a Lindblad-based approach, in which the Lindblad operators, instead of being derived from a microscopic calculation, are established as the elements of an operatorial basis with squared amplitudes fixed by imposing a detailed balance condition and requiring their correspondence with the dipole transition rates evaluated under the first-order perturbation theory. Due to the above-mentioned degeneracies, this procedure suffers a basis arbitrariness which, however, can be removed by exploiting the fact that the thermalization of an ensemble of noninteracting systems cannot depend on the ensemble size. As a result, we provide a clear-cut partitioning of the thermalization time into dissipation and decoherence times, for which we derive formulas giving the dependence on the energy levels of the elementary systems, the size $N$ of the ensemble, and the temperature of the blackbody radiation.

Nonclassical light from few emitters in a cavity

We study the characteristics of the light generated by few emitters in a cavity at strong light-matter coupling. By means of the Glauber $g^{(2)}$-function we can identify clearly distinguished parameter regimes with super-Poissonian and sub-Poissonian photon statistics. We establish a relation between the emission characteristics for one and multiple emitters, and explain its origin in terms of the photon-dressed emitter states. Cooperative effects lead to the generation of nonclassical light already at reduced light-matter coupling if the number of emitters is increased. Our results are obtained with a full input-output formalism and master equation valid also at strong light-matter coupling. We compare the behavior obtained with and without counter-rotating light-matter interaction terms in the Hamiltonian, and find that the generation of nonclassical light is robust against such modifications. Finally, we contrast our findings with the predictions of the quantum optical master equation and find that it fails entirely at predicting regimes with different photon statistics.

Quantum filtering of a thermal master equation with a purified reservoir

We consider a system subject to a quantum optical master equation at finite temperature and study a class of conditional dynamics obtained by monitoring its totally or partially purified environment. More specifically, drawing from the notion that the thermal state of the environment may be regarded as the local state of a lossy and noisy two-mode squeezed state, we consider conditional dynamics ("unravellings") resulting from the homodyne detection of the two modes of such a state. Thus, we identify a class of unravellings parametrised by the loss rate suffered by the environmental two-mode state, which interpolate between direct detection of the environmental mode alone (occurring for total loss, whereby no correlation between the two environmental modes is left) and full access to the purification of the bath (occurring when no loss is acting and the two-mode state of the environment is pure). We hence show that, while direct detection of the bath is not able to reach the maximal steady-state squeezing allowed by general-dyne unravellings, such optimal values can be obtained when a fully purified bath is accessible. More generally we show that, within our framework, any degree of access to the bath purification improves the performance of filtering protocols in terms of achievable squeezing and entanglement.

Quantum optical master equation for solid-state quantum emitters

We provide an elementary description of the dynamics of defect centers in crystals in terms of a quantum optical master equation which includes spontaneous decay and a simplified vibronic interaction with lattice phonons. We present the general solution of the dynamical equation by means of the eigensystem of the Liouville operator and exemplify the usage of this damping basis to calculate the dynamics of the electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom and to provide an analysis of the spectra of scattered light. The dynamics and spectral features are discussed with respect to the applicability for color centers, especially for negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond.

Re-examining the self-contained quantum refrigerator in the strong-coupling regime.

We revisit the self-contained quantum refrigerator in the strong-internal-coupling regime by employing the quantum optical master equation. It is shown that strong internal coupling reduces the cooling ability of the refrigerator. In contrast to the weak-coupling case, strong internal coupling could lead to quite different and even converse thermodynamic behaviors.