English

Measurement master equation

Quantum Physics 2009-11-13 v1

Abstract

We derive a master equation describing the evolution of a quantum system subjected to a sequence of observations. These measurements occur randomly at a given rate and can be of a very general form. As an example, we analyse the effects of these measurements on the evolution of a two-level atom driven by an electromagnetic field. For the associated quantum trajectories we find Rabi oscillations, Zeno-effect type behaviour and random telegraph evolution spawned by mini quantum jumps as we change the rates and strengths of measurement.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0602153,
  title  = {Measurement master equation},
  author = {James D. Cresser and Stephen M. Barnett and John Jeffers and David T. Pegg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0602153},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

14 pages and 8 figures, Optics Communications in press