Theoretical Studies of Dynamics of Density Matrix in Contact with Thermal Bath

and Quantum Master Equation

Haw Jing Yan

University of Tokyo Research Internship Programme Summary Report

In this internship project, we revisit the quantum dynamics of the open quantum system with
the standard projection operator techniques of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics presented in
[T. Mori and S. Miyashita, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., Vol.77, No. 12]. Under the case of weak system-
environment coupling, one derives a time convolutionless equation of motion of the reduced density
matrix. In long time limit, the equation of motion can be simplified, which eventually leads to the
conventional quantum master equations. Next, we examine the steady states of the equations of
motions by referring to the equilibrium state of the system itself and the modified equilibrium state
due to interaction with environment. Lastly, we illustrate our studies by providing two explicit
examples of spin-boson and boson system.

I. INTRODUCTION

The theoretical description of the relaxation phe-

nomena of quantum dynamics in open quantum system
can be obtained from the Bloch equation of the open
quantum system, which consist of system, thermal
bath and the system-bath interaction [1, 2]. However,
memory effects in open quantum system often leads to
non-Markovian dynamics. The systematic approach to
such dynamics is the method of the projection operator,
which is often deployed in the non-equilibrium statistical FIG. 1: Open quantum system characterized by ρT , which
mechanics [3]. consists of the system ρS and thermal bath ρB . The evolution
of the system, thermal bath and the total system are described
by HS , HB and HT respectively
In this present summary report, following [4, 5] we
discuss the idea of using projection operator technique
to obtain the equation of motion (EOM) of the reduced
density matrix of the system. In an open quantum sys-
tem, the reduced density matrix of the steady state is ∂ 1
modified from the equilibrium of the system itself due to ρT = [HT , ρT ] ≡ iLρT . (2)
∂t i~
the presence of interaction with the thermal bath. We
explicitly verify this modified solution with the equilib- where the commutator between the HT and ρT , the total
rium density matrix of the total system. The role of real system density matrix defines a linear operator denoted
and imaginary terms in the quantum master equation is by iL operating on ρT .
studied by examining their respective steady state solu-
tions. We complete our discussion with the example of
B. Projection Operator Scheme
spin-boson and boson system.

The projection operator technique is based on the idea

II. FORMULATION
A. Open quantum system
We study the dynamics of the reduced density matrix
[1, 2] of the system HS in the open quantum system (Fig.
1), in which the Hamiltonian of the total system HT is
HT = HS + HB + λHI .
where λ is a parameter that represent the coupling
strength between the system and the environment. The
equation of motion of the density matrix of the total
system is given by the Bloch equation
of elimination of degrees of freedom in order to give a
simplified effective description of the system through a
reduced set of variables. We first introduced the pro-
jection superoperator P, which acts on the states of the
total system and projects it ρT onto a tensor product
states
PρT = ρS ⊗ ρB ≡ TrB ρT ⊗ ρB (3)
(1) where ρB is the equilibrium density matrix of the thermal
bath and the reduced density of the system ρS is the par-
tial trace taken over the bath Hilbert space TrB defined
as
ρS = TrB ρT (4)
 2

This projection PρT is often referred to the relevant part where we introduced Ψ(t), the autocorrelation function
of the density matrix. The projection operator P satisfies of Y in the thermal bath
P 2 = P and we also have Q = 1 − P which is related
the irrelevant part of the density matrix. With these Ψ(t) = TrB eiHB t/~ Y e−iHB t/~ Y ρB ≡ hY (t)Y i. (11)
properties, we can seperate Eq.(2) as
 ∂
∂t Pρ = P(iLρ) = PiLPρ + PiLQρ (5) B. Time convolutionless Form
∂
∂t Qρ = Q(iLρ) = QiLPρ + QiLQρ.
Solving the second equation and substituting back into The equation of motion Eq.(10) is an integro-
the first equation, one obtains differential equation which is rather difficult to solve be-
∂
cause it contains a convolution. Nevertheless, since we
∂t Pρ = PiLPρ
Rt are in the in the weak coupling regime, we may use the
+ PiL t0 e(t−τ )Q(iL) QiLPρ(τ )dτ (6) replacement
+ PiLe(t−t0 )Q(iL) Qρ(t0 ).
e−iHS t/~ ρS (t)eiHS t/~ ≈ e−iHS τ /~ ρS (τ )eiHS τ /~ (12)
This equation can be understood as such: the first
terms represents the quantum dynamics due to the up to the second order of λ. With this, our equation of
system Hamiltonian, the second term arises from the motion now does not depend on τ . Together with the
non-Markov evolution due to the memory effects, i.e. the substitution u = t − τ , we obtain
future states depends on the initial time t0 as well. The
last term exhibits dependence to the initial total density  2 Z t−t0
∂ 1 λ
matrix ρT (t0 ). ρS = [HS , ρS ] − TrB du
∂t i~ ~ 0
× [XX(−u)ρS (t)Ψ(u) − XρS (t)X(−u)Ψ(−u)
− X(−u)ρS (t)XΨ(u) + ρS (t)X(−u)XΨ(−u)]
III. EQUATION OF MOTION
+ λTrB iLI e(t−t0 )iL0 QρT (t0 )
Z 1
Here, we will be studying the case where the system + λ2 TrB iLI e(t−t0 )iL0 dx
and the environment are weakly coupled to each other, in 0
which only up to second order of the interaction strength × Qe −x(t−t0 )iL0
(t − t0 )iLI Qex(t−t0 )iL0 Qρ(t0 ),
λ will be considered. With the relations in Appendix, (13)
Eq. (6) takes the form of which is a time-convolutionless form of equation of mo-
R t (t−τ )iL tion of the reduced density matrix. We shall denoted this
∂
∂t ρS = iLS ρS + λ2 TrB iLI t0 e0 iLI ρB ρS (τ )dτ as
+ λTrB iLI e(t−t0 )iL0 QρT (t0 ) ∂
+
R1
λ2 TrB iLI e(t−t0 )iL0 0 dx ρS ≡ L(2) (ρS ) (14)
∂t
× Qe−x(t−t0 )iL0 (t − t0 )iLI Qex(t−t0 )iL0 Qρ(t0 ),
(7) where the superscript indicates the equation of motion is
where up to the second order of λ.
1 1
[HS + HB , ρ] ≡ iL0 ρ, and [HI , ρ] ≡ iLI ρ. (8)
i~ i~ C. Conventional Quantum Master Equations

A. Explicit Interaction The thermal bath in consideration satisfies the follow-

ing properties:
We now adopt the following form of the interaction 1. Equilibrium density matrix of thermal bath
Hamiltonian
HI = XY, (9) e−βHB
ρB = , ZB = TrB e−βHB (15)
ZB
where X denotes an operator from the system and Y is
the operator belong to the bath[6]. The second term can
2. Long time limit correlation
be expanded as
Rt
−( λ~ )2 t0 { Ψ(t − τ )Xe−i(t−τ )HS XρS (τ )ei(t−τ )HS lim Ψ(t) = 0 (16)
t→∞
− Ψ(−t + τ )Xe−i(t−τ )HS ρS (τ )Xei(t−τ )HS
− Ψ(t − τ )e−i(t−τ )HS XρS (τ )ei(t−τ )HS X 3. Kubo-Martin-Schwinger relation
+ Ψ(−t + τ )e−i(t−τ )HS ρS (τ )Xei(t−τ )HS X}dτ.
(10) Ψ(t) = Ψ(−t − i~β) (17)
 3

In the long time limit where t0 → ∞, the last two terms V. STEADY STATE SOLUTIONS
involving ρT (t0 ) in Eq. (13) vanishes due to relation Eq.
(16) and we have We now trying to find the solutions for the equation of
 2 Z ∞ motions that satisfies
∂ 1 λ
ρS = [HS , ρS ] − TrB du ∂ 1
∂t i~ ~ 0
ρ = [H, ρ] = 0 (27)
∂t i~
× [XX(−u)ρS (t)Ψ(u) − XρS (t)X(−u)Ψ(−u)
by using the equilibrium states obtained from previous
− X(−u)ρS (t)XΨ(u) + ρS (t)X(−u)XΨ(−u)] sections. The results are summarized in the Table 2
(18)
We shall denote this form of quantum master equation
as
∂ (2)
ρS = LRG (ρS ) (19)
∂t
This equation can be further evaluated with the identity
Z ∞
i
eiωu du = πδ(ω) + P . (20)
0 ω

By discarding the principal value part of the integral, we

arrive at the conventional quantum master equation FIG. 2: Steady state solutions (right) for the equation of mo-
tions (left)
 2
∂ 1 λ
ρS = [HS , ρS ] +
∂t i~ i~ Here, we explicitly verified that the interaction-
[XRρS (t) − RρS (t)X − XρS (t)R + ρS (t)R X] † † modified equilibrium state satisfies L(2) (ρS ). This implies
(21) that the steady states of the EOM up to order of λ is in-
in which in the basis of the eigenstate of the system deed different from the equilibrium state of the system
Hamiltonian HS , matrix R read as alone ρeq eq
S . However, ρS satisfies the conventional master
equation.
 
El − Em ∂
Rlm = πXlm Ψ , (22) (2)
ρS = L0 (ρeq
~ S )=0 (28)
∂t
and we represent this quantum master equation by This means the conventional master equation causes the
system to relax to equilibrium of the system without the
∂ (2) trace of the effects of thermal bath. The interaction
ρS = L0 (ρS ) (23) with the thermal bath can be recovered by the quan-
∂t
tum master equations that incorporates the imaginary
part (Eq.(18)). This imaginary part gives the renormal-
IV. EQUILIBRIUM STATES ization of Hamiltonian of the system, which is known as
“Lamb shift”.
The equilibrium state of the total system is
VI. EXAMPLES
e−βHT
ρeq
T = , Z = Tre−βHT . (24)
Z
As verification, we work out the equation of motions
And the equilibrium state of the system itself is and the reduced density matrices of the total density ma-
trices for the following system
e−βHS
ρeq
S = , ZS = TrS e−βHS . (25)
ZS
A. Spin-boson system
To obtain the reduced density matrix of the equilibrium
state, we take the partial trace of the thermal bath from Here we study the spin-boson system given by
the total system (4)
HS = ~ωC |eihe|, (29)
eq(2) eq(2)
ρS = TrB ρT , (26) X
HB = ~ωα b†α bα , (30)
which results in the α
 4

where ωC is the transition frequency of the ground state of the system itself. The proper equation of motion to
and the excited state |ei. ωα are the frequencies for the deploy depends on the regime, i.e. time evolution within
bosonic bath with {b† , b} denotes the creation and annihi- the thermal bath relaxation time or long time limit or in-
lation operator of the bath. The interaction Hamiltonian terest of studies, i.e. relaxation to equilibrium of system
is given by or effect of contact with thermal bath.
X
HI = λ (κα bα σ+ + κ†α b†α σ− ) = λ(Bσ+ + B † σ− ), (31)
α Acknowledgement

where
The author would like to thank Professor Seiji
B=
X
κα bα , and B =†
X
κ†α b†α . (32) Miyashita and Mr. Takashi Mori for their valuable and
α α
insightful discussion, Mr. Sergio Andraus for useful ad-
vices (and also Remo san, Takahashi san and Go san for
attending my presentation twice per week). The author
B. Boson system would also like to express this gratitude to the organizer
of UTRIP. This work is supported by Graduate School
For the boson system, basically we replace HS of pre- of Science (GSS) of the University of Tokyo and Daiwa-
vious case with Securities Group Scholarship for Summer-School Partic-
ipants.
HS = ~ωC a† a, (33) Appendix

where {a† , a} denotes the creation and annihilation The relations used to derive the equation of motion of
operator of the system. the reduced density matrix Eq. (7) are

In both cases, by substituting the reduced density ma- PiLPρ = PiLPρB ρS .

trix backed to the equation of motion, we show that they PiLB f = ρB TrB [HB , f ]/i~ = 0.
are indeed the steady states for the spin-boson and boson iLB Pf = [HB , ρB TrB f ]/i~ = 0.
system respectively. PiLS Pf = ρB TrB [HS , ρB TrB f ]/i~ = iLS Pf.
PiLI Pf = ρB [TrB (HI ρB ), TrB f ]/i~
= [HI , Pf ]/i~ = iLI Pf.
VII. CONCLUSIONS QiLP = iλ(L − LI )P.
PiLQ = iλP(L − LI ).
We explicitly verified that the interaction with system
leads to modification from the equilibrium density matrix where f is some arbituary function.

[1] R. Kubo, M. Toda and N. Hashitsume, Statistical Physics
II, (Springer-Verlag, New York, 1985).
[2] W. H. Louisell, Quantum Statistical Properties of Radia-
tion, (Wiley, New York, 1973).
[3] Breuer, Heinz-Peter; F. Petruccione (2007). The Theory
of Open Quantum Systems, Oxford University Press
[4] T. Mori and S. Miyashita: J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 77 (2008)
124005.
[5] T. Mori and S. Miyashita: unpublished. P
[6] We may also extend this to a more general form of i Xi Yi