Memory Effects in Quantum Dynamics Modelled by Quantum Renewal Processes

Abstract

Simple, controllable models play an important role in learning how to manipulate and control quantum resources. We focus here on quantum non-Markovianity and model the evolution of open quantum systems by quantum renewal processes. This class of quantum dynamics provides us with a phenomenological approach to characterise dynamics with a variety of non-Markovian behaviours, here described in terms of the trace distance between two reduced states. By adopting a trajectory picture for the open quantum system evolution, we analyse how non-Markovianity is influenced by the constituents defining the quantum renewal process, namely the time-continuous part of the dynamics, the type of jumps and the waiting time distributions. We focus not only on the mere value of the non-Markovianity measure, but also on how different features of the trace distance evolution are altered, including times and number of revivals.

Keywords

• open quantum systems
• renewal processes
• memory effects
• master equations
• non-Markovianity