No Arabic abstract
It is common, when dealing with quantum processes involving a subsystem of a much larger composite closed system, to treat them as effectively memory-less (Markovian). While open systems theory tells us that non-Markovian processes should be the norm, the ubiquity of Markovian processes is undeniable. Here, without resorting to the Born-Markov assumption of weak coupling or making any approximations, we formally prove that processes are close to Markovian ones, when the subsystem is sufficiently small compared to the remainder of the composite, with a probability that tends to unity exponentially in the size of the latter. We also show that, for a fixed global system size, it may not be possible to neglect non-Markovian effects when the process is allowed to continue for long enough. However, detecting non-Markovianity for such processes would usually require non-trivial entangling resources. Our results have foundational importance, as they give birth to almost Markovian processes from composite closed dynamics, and to obtain them we introduce a new notion of equilibration that is far stronger than the conventional one and show that this stronger equilibration is attained.
A general formalism is introduced to allow the steady state of non-Markovian processes on networks to be reduced to equivalent Markovian processes on the same substrates. The example of an epidemic spreading process is considered in detail, where all the non-Markovian aspects are shown to be captured within a single parameter, the effective infection rate. Remarkably, this result is independent of the topology of the underlying network, as demonstrated by numerical simulations on two-dimensional lattices and various types of random networks. Furthermore, an analytic approximation for the effective infection rate is introduced, which enables the calculation of the critical point and of the critical exponents for the non-Markovian dynamics.
We construct a large class of completely positive and trace preserving non-Markovian dynamical maps for an open quantum system. These maps arise from a piecewise dynamics characterized by a continuous time evolution interrupted by jumps, randomly distributed in time and described by a quantum channel. The state of the open system is shown to obey a closed evolution equation, given by a master equation with a memory kernel and a inhomogeneous term. The non-Markovianity of the obtained dynamics is explicitly assessed studying the behavior of the distinguishability of two different initial systems states with elapsing time.
The study of quantum dynamics featuring memory effects has always been a topic of interest within the theory of open quantum system, which is concerned about providing useful conceptual and theoretical tools for the description of the reduced dynamics of a system interacting with an external environment. Definitions of non-Markovian processes have been introduced trying to capture the notion of memory effect by studying features of the quantum dynamical map providing the evolution of the system states, or changes in the distinguishability of the system states themselves. We introduce basic notions in the framework of open quantum systems, stressing in particular analogies and differences with models used for introducing modifications of quantum mechanics which should help in dealing with the measurement problem. We further discuss recent developments in the treatment of non-Markovian processes and their role in considering more general modifications of quantum mechanics.
It is by now well established that noise itself can be useful for performing quantum information processing tasks. We present results which show how one can effectively reduce the error rate associated with a noisy quantum channel, by counteracting its detrimental effects with another form of noise. In particular, we consider the effect of adding on top of a purely Markovian (Lindblad) dynamics, a more general form of dissipation, which we refer to as generalized-Markovian noise. This noise has an associated memory kernel and the resulting dynamics is described by an integro-differential equation. The overall dynamics are characterized by decay rates which depend not only on the original dissipative time-scales, but also on the new integral kernel. We find that one can engineer this kernel such that the overall rate of decay is lowered by the addition of this noise term. We illustrate this technique for the case where the bare noise is described by a dephasing Pauli channel. We analytically solve this model, and show that one can effectively double (or even triple) the length of the channel, whilst achieving the same fidelity, entanglement, and error threshold. We numerically verify this scheme can also be used to protect against thermal Markovian noise (at non-zero temperature), which models spontaneous emission and excitation processes. A physical interpretation of this scheme is discussed, whereby the added generalized-Markovian noise causes the system to become periodically decoupled from the background Markovian noise.
We investigate what a snapshot of a quantum evolution - a quantum channel reflecting open system dynamics - reveals about the underlying continuous time evolution. Remarkably, from such a snapshot, and without imposing additional assumptions, it can be decided whether or not a channel is consistent with a time (in)dependent Markovian evolution, for which we provide computable necessary and sufficient criteria. Based on these, a computable measure of `Markovianity is introduced. We discuss how the consistency with Markovian dynamics can be checked in quantum process tomography. The results also clarify the geometry of the set of quantum channels with respect to being solutions of time (in)dependent master equations.