English

Simulating Open Quantum Systems with Hamiltonian Ensembles and the Nonclassicality of the Dynamics

Quantum Physics 2018-01-23 v4

Abstract

The incoherent dynamical properties of open quantum systems are generically attributed to an ongoing correlation between the system and its environment. Here, we propose a novel way to assess the nature of these system-environment correlations by examining the system dynamics alone. Our approach is based on the possibility or impossibility to simulate open-system dynamics with Hamiltonian ensembles. As we show, such (im)possibility to simulate is closely linked to the system-environment correlations. We thus define the nonclassicality of open-system dynamics in terms of the nonexistence of a Hamiltonian-ensemble simulation. This classifies any nonunital open-system dynamics as nonclassical. We give examples for open-system dynamics that are unital and classical, as well as unital and nonclassical.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1703.09428,
  title  = {Simulating Open Quantum Systems with Hamiltonian Ensembles and the Nonclassicality of the Dynamics},
  author = {Hong-Bin Chen and Clemens Gneiting and Ping-Yuan Lo and Yueh-Nan Chen and Franco Nori},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1703.09428},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

Main article: 6 pages, 2 figures; Supplementary: 5 pages, 2 figures; Accepted by Phys. Rev. Lett., in press (2018)