Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics

By generalizing concepts from classical stochastic dynamics, we establish the basis for a theory of metastability in Markovian open quantum systems. Partial relaxation into long-lived metastable states—distinct from the asymptotic stationary state—is a manifestation of a separation of time scales du...

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Main Authors: Macieszczak, Katarzyna, Guţă, Mădălin, Lesanovsky, Igor, Garrahan, Juan P.
Format: Article
Published: American Physical Society 2016
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/34757/
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author Macieszczak, Katarzyna
Guţă, Mădălin
Lesanovsky, Igor
Garrahan, Juan P.
author_facet Macieszczak, Katarzyna
Guţă, Mădălin
Lesanovsky, Igor
Garrahan, Juan P.
author_sort Macieszczak, Katarzyna
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description By generalizing concepts from classical stochastic dynamics, we establish the basis for a theory of metastability in Markovian open quantum systems. Partial relaxation into long-lived metastable states—distinct from the asymptotic stationary state—is a manifestation of a separation of time scales due to a splitting in the spectrum of the generator of the dynamics. We show here how to exploit this spectral structure to obtain a low dimensional approximation to the dynamics in terms of motion in a manifold of metastable states constructed from the low-lying eigenmatrices of the generator. We argue that the metastable manifold is in general composed of disjoint states, noiseless subsystems, and decoherence-free subspaces.
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spelling nottingham-347572020-05-04T17:56:20Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/34757/ Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics Macieszczak, Katarzyna Guţă, Mădălin Lesanovsky, Igor Garrahan, Juan P. By generalizing concepts from classical stochastic dynamics, we establish the basis for a theory of metastability in Markovian open quantum systems. Partial relaxation into long-lived metastable states—distinct from the asymptotic stationary state—is a manifestation of a separation of time scales due to a splitting in the spectrum of the generator of the dynamics. We show here how to exploit this spectral structure to obtain a low dimensional approximation to the dynamics in terms of motion in a manifold of metastable states constructed from the low-lying eigenmatrices of the generator. We argue that the metastable manifold is in general composed of disjoint states, noiseless subsystems, and decoherence-free subspaces. American Physical Society 2016-06-16 Article PeerReviewed Macieszczak, Katarzyna, Guţă, Mădălin, Lesanovsky, Igor and Garrahan, Juan P. (2016) Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics. Physical Review Letters, 116 (24). 240404/1-240404/6. ISSN 1079-7114 http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.240404 doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.240404 doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.240404
spellingShingle Macieszczak, Katarzyna
Guţă, Mădălin
Lesanovsky, Igor
Garrahan, Juan P.
Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
title Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
title_full Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
title_fullStr Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
title_full_unstemmed Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
title_short Towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
title_sort towards a theory of metastability in open quantum dynamics
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/34757/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/34757/
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/34757/