130 research outputs found
Concepts of quantum non-Markovianity: a hierarchy
Markovian approximation is a widely-employed idea in descriptions of the
dynamics of open quantum systems (OQSs). Although it is usually claimed to be a
concept inspired by classical Markovianity, the term quantum Markovianity is
used inconsistently and often unrigorously in the literature. In this report we
compare the descriptions of classical stochastic processes and quantum
stochastic processes (as arising in OQSs), and show that there are inherent
differences that lead to the non-trivial problem of characterizing quantum
non-Markovianity. Rather than proposing a single definition of quantum
Markovianity, we study a host of Markov-related concepts in the quantum regime.
Some of these concepts have long been used in quantum theory, such as quantum
white noise, factorization approximation, divisibility, Lindblad master
equation, etc.. Others are first proposed in this report, including those we
call past-future independence, no (quantum) information backflow, and
composability. All of these concepts are defined under a unified framework,
which allows us to rigorously build hierarchy relations among them. With
various examples, we argue that the current most often used definitions of
quantum Markovianity in the literature do not fully capture the memoryless
property of OQSs. In fact, quantum non-Markovianity is highly
context-dependent. The results in this report, summarized as a hierarchy
figure, bring clarity to the nature of quantum non-Markovianity.Comment: Clarifications and references added; discussion of the related
classical hierarchy significantly improved. To appear in Physics Report
Optimized auxiliary oscillators for the simulation of general open quantum systems
A method for the systematic construction of few-body damped harmonic
oscillator networks accurately reproducing the effect of general bosonic
environments in open quantum systems is presented. Under the sole assumptions
of a Gaussian environment and regardless of the system coupled to it, an
algorithm to determine the parameters of an equivalent set of interacting
damped oscillators obeying a Markovian quantum master equation is introduced.
By choosing a suitable coupling to the system and minimizing an appropriate
distance between the two-time correlation function of this effective bath and
that of the target environment, the error induced in the reduced dynamics of
the system is brought under rigorous control. The interactions among the
effective modes provide remarkable flexibility in replicating non-Markovian
effects on the system even with a small number of oscillators, and the
resulting Lindblad equation may therefore be integrated at a very reasonable
computational cost using standard methods for Markovian problems, even in
strongly non-perturbative coupling regimes and at arbitrary temperatures
including zero. We apply the method to an exactly solvable problem in order to
demonstrate its accuracy, and present a study based on current research in the
context of coherent transport in biological aggregates as a more realistic
example of its use; performance and versatility are highlighted, and
theoretical and numerical advantages over existing methods, as well as possible
future improvements, are discussed.Comment: 23 + 9 pages, 11 + 2 figures. No changes from previous version except
publication info and updated author affiliation
Quantum complex networks
This Thesis focuses on networks of interacting quantum harmonic oscillators and in particular, on them as environments for an open quantum system, their probing via the open system, their transport properties, and their experimental implementation. Exact Gaussian dynamics of such networks is considered throughout the Thesis.
Networks of interacting quantum systems have been used to model structured environments before, but most studies have considered either small or non-complex networks. Here this problem is addressed by investigating what kind of environments complex networks of quantum systems are, with specific attention paid on the presence or absence of memory effects (non-Markovianity) of the reduced open system dynamics. The probing of complex networks is considered in two different scenarios: when the probe can be coupled to any system in the network, and when it can be coupled to just one. It is shown that for identical oscillators and uniform interaction strengths between them, much can be said about the network also in the latter case. The problem of discriminating between two networks is also discussed.
While state transfer between two sites in a (typically non-complex) network is a well-known problem, this Thesis considers a more general setting where multiple parties send and receive quantum information simultaneously through a quantum network. It is discussed what properties would make a network suited for efficient routing, and what is needed for a systematic search and ranking of such networks. Finding such networks complex enough to be resilient to random node or link failures would be ideal.
The merit and applicability of the work described so far depends crucially on the ability to implement networks of both reasonable size and complex structure, which is something the previous proposals lack. The ability to implement several different networks with a fixed experimental setup is also highly desirable. In this Thesis the problem is solved with a proposal of a fully reconfigurable experimental realization, based on mapping the network dynamics to a multimode optical platform
Nature does not rely on long-lived electronic quantum coherence for photosynthetic energy transfer
During the first steps of photosynthesis, the energy of impinging solar photons is transformed into electronic excitation energy of the light-harvesting biomolecular complexes. The subsequent energy transfer to the reaction center is commonly rationalized in terms of excitons moving on a grid of biomolecular chromophores on typical timescales [Formula: see text]100 fs. Today's understanding of the energy transfer includes the fact that the excitons are delocalized over a few neighboring sites, but the role of quantum coherence is considered as irrelevant for the transfer dynamics because it typically decays within a few tens of femtoseconds. This orthodox picture of incoherent energy transfer between clusters of a few pigments sharing delocalized excitons has been challenged by ultrafast optical spectroscopy experiments with the Fenna-Matthews-Olson protein, in which interference oscillatory signals up to 1.5 ps were reported and interpreted as direct evidence of exceptionally long-lived electronic quantum coherence. Here, we show that the optical 2D photon echo spectra of this complex at ambient temperature in aqueous solution do not provide evidence of any long-lived electronic quantum coherence, but confirm the orthodox view of rapidly decaying electronic quantum coherence on a timescale of 60 fs. Our results can be considered as generic and give no hint that electronic quantum coherence plays any biofunctional role in real photoactive biomolecular complexes. Because in this structurally well-defined protein the distances between bacteriochlorophylls are comparable to those of other light-harvesting complexes, we anticipate that this finding is general and directly applies to even larger photoactive biomolecular complexes
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