Jumptime unraveling of Markovian open quantum systems


Abstract in English

We introduce jumptime unraveling as a distinct method to analyze quantum jump trajectories and the associated open/continuously monitored quantum systems. In contrast to the standard unraveling of quantum master equations, where the stochastically evolving quantum trajectories are ensemble-averaged at specific times, we average quantum trajectories at specific jump counts. The resulting quantum state then follows a discrete, deterministic evolution equation, with time replaced by the jump count. We show that, for systems with finite-dimensional state space, this evolution equation represents a trace-preserving quantum dynamical map if and only if the underlying quantum master equation does not exhibit dark states. In the presence of dark states, on the other hand, the state may decay and/or the jumptime evolution eventually terminate entirely. We elaborate the operational protocol to observe jumptime-averaged quantum states, and we illustrate the jumptime evolution with the examples of a two-level system undergoing amplitude damping or dephasing, a damped harmonic oscillator, and a free particle exposed to collisional decoherence.

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