Phys. Rev. A 70, 012106 (2004) [12 pages]

Genuine quantum trajectories for non-Markovian processes

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Heinz-Peter Breuer *
Physikalisches Institut, Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Straße 3, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany

Received 16 March 2004; published 12 July 2004

A large class of non-Markovian quantum processes in open systems can be formulated through time-local master equations which are not in Lindblad form. It is shown that such processes can be embedded in a Markovian dynamics which involves a time-dependent Lindblad generator on an extended state space. If the state space of the open system is given by some Hilbert space H , the extended state space is the triple Hilbert space HC3 which is obtained by combining the open system with a three-state system. This embedding is used to derive an unraveling for non-Markovian time evolution by means of a stochastic process in the extended state space. The process is defined through a stochastic Schrödinger equation which generates genuine quantum trajectories for the state vector conditioned on a continuous monitoring of an environment. The construction leads to a continuous measurement interpretation for non-Markovian dynamics within the framework of the theory of quantum measurement.


©2004 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.70.012106
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.70.012106
PACS: 03.65.Yz, 42.50.Lc, 03.65.Ta

* Electronic address: breuer@physik.uni-freiburg.de

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