Long-Term Behaviour in an Exactly Solvable Model of Pure Decoherence and the Problem of Markovian Embedding

Abstract

We consider a well-known, exactly solvable model of an open quantum system with pure decoherence. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, decoherence is a property of open quantum systems important for both quantum technologies and the fundamental question of the quantum–classical transition. It is worth studying how the long-term rate of decoherence depends on the spectral density characterising the system–bath interaction in this exactly solvable model. Secondly, we address a more general problem of the Markovian embedding of non-Markovian open system dynamics. It is often assumed that a non-Markovian open quantum system can be embedded into a larger Markovian system. However, we show that such embedding is possible only for Ohmic spectral densities (for the case of a positive bath temperature) and is impossible for both sub- and super-Ohmic spectral densities. On the other hand, for Ohmic spectral densities, an asymptotic large-time Markovianity (in terms of the quantum regression formula) takes place.

Keywords

• open quantum systems
• decoherence
• Markovian dynamics
• non-Markovian dynamics