The Emergence of Classicality via Decoherence Described by Lindblad Operators

We investigate the entropic consequences of the relaxation of an open two-level quantum system towards a thermalised statistical state, using a framework of quantum state diffusion with a minimal set of raising and lowering Lindblad operators. We demonstrate that thermalisation starting from a general state is accompanied by a persistent non-zero mean rate of change of the environmental component of stochastic entropy production. This thermodynamic signature can be associated...

The thesis is contributed to the study of the decoherence dynamics of dissipative qubit systems. We reveal the profound impact of the formation of a bound state between the qubit and its local environment on the decoherence dynamics of qubit system in non-Markovian regime. We find that the decoherence can be suppressed greatly under the non-Markovian dynamics when the bound state is formed. Consequently, the entanglement can be partially preserved in the steady state. A crite...

The so-called classical limit of quantum mechanics is generally studied in terms of the decoherence of the state operator that characterizes a system. This is not the only possible approach to decoherence. In previous works we have presented the possibility of studying the classical limit in terms of the decoherence of relevant observables of the system. On the basis of this approach, in this paper we introduce the classical limit from a logical perspective, by studying the w...

We show that the rate of increase of von Neumann entropy computed from the reduced density matrix of an open quantum system is an excellent indicator of the dynamical behavior of its classical hamiltonian counterpart. In decohering quantum analogs of systems which exhibit classical hamiltonian chaos entropy production rate quickly tends to a constant which is given by the sum of the positive Lyapunov exponents, and falls off only as the system approaches equilibrium. By contr...

Self-interactions and interaction with the environment tend to push quantum systems toward states of maximal entanglement. This is a definition of decoherence. We argue that these maximally entangled states fall into the well-defined classes that can be uniquely described by the values of certain entanglement invariants. After discussing these ideas we present examples of maximally entangled states for a number of generic systems, construct compact states in the most entangle...

I briefly review the ''decohering histories'' or ''consistent histories'' formulation of quantum theory, due to Griffiths, Omnes, and Gell-Mann and Hartle (and the subject of my graduate work with George Sudarshan). I also sift through the many meanings that have been attached to decohering histories, with an emphasis on the most basic one: Decoherence of appropriate histories is needed to establish that quantum mechanics has the correct classical limit. Then I will describe ...

In this contribution I give a brief introduction to the essential concepts and mechanisms of decoherence by the environment. The emphasis will be not so much on technical details but rather on conceptual issues and the impact on the interpretation problem of quantum theory.

Quantum dynamical decoupling is a procedure to cancel the effective coupling between two systems by applying sequences of fast actuations, under which the coupling Hamiltonian averages out to leading order(s). One of its prominent uses is to drive a target system in such a way as to decouple it from a less protected one. The present manuscript investigates the dual strategy: acting on a noisy "environment" subsystem such as to decouple it from a target system. The potential a...

We study decoherence in a simple quantum mechanical model using two approaches. Firstly, we follow the conventional approach to decoherence where one is interested in solving the reduced density matrix from the perturbative master equation. Secondly, we consider our novel correlator approach to decoherence where entropy is generated by neglecting observationally inaccessible correlators. We show that both methods can accurately predict decoherence time scales. However, the pe...

Recently some authors have pointed out that there exist nonclassical correlations which are more general, and possibly more fundamental, than entanglement. For these general quantum correlations and their classical counterparts, under the action of decoherence, we identify three general types of dynamics that include a peculiar sudden change in their decay rates. We show that, under suitable conditions, the classical correlation is unaffected by decoherence. Such dynamic beha...