2020/04/27 by Li Yu, Yu, Li, Eric J. Heller +1
Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Physics (quant-ph) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2004.13130
34 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2020/04/27 · arxiv updated 2020/04/29
We present a succinct and intuitive derivation of a formally exact master equation for general open quantum systems, without the use of an "inverse" map which was invoked in previous works on formally exact master equations. This formalism is applicable to non-Markovian regimes. We derive a second-order equation of motion for the illustrative spin-boson model at arbitrary temperatures, observing non-exponential decoherence and relaxation. Limiting our generic derivation to zero temperature, we also reproduce the result for the special case of a vacuum bath in Phys. Rev. A 81, 042103 (2010).