We study the quantum entropy of systems that are described by general non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, including those which can model the effects of sinks or sources. We generalize the von Neumann entropy to the non- Hermitian case and find that one need
s both the normalized and non-normalized density operators in order to properly describe irreversible processes. It turns out that such a generalization monitors the onset of disorder in quantum dissipative systems. We give arguments for why one can consider the generalized entropy as the informational entropy describing the flow of information between the system and the bath. We illustrate the theory by explicitly studying few simple models, including tunneling systems with two energy levels and non-Hermitian detuning.
We introduce a formalism for time-dependent correlation functions for systems whose evolutions are governed by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians of general type. It turns out that one can define two different types of time correlation functions. Both these
definitions seem to be physically consistent while becoming equivalent only in certain cases. Moreover, when autocorrelation functions are considered, one can introduce another function defined as the relative difference between the two definitions. We conjecture that such a function can be used to assess the positive semi-definiteness of the density operator without computing its eigenvalues. We illustrate these points by studying analytically a number of models with two energy levels.
