Physics – Quantum Physics
Scientific paper
2005-03-14
Phys. Rev. A 72, 024103 (2005)
Physics
Quantum Physics
Revised version. 4 pages, 1 figure
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevA.72.024103
In this paper I investigate the usability of the characteristic functions for the description of the dynamics of open quantum systems focussing on non-Lindblad-type master equations. I consider, as an example, a non-Markovian generalized master equation containing a memory kernel which may lead to nonphysical time evolutions characterized by negative values of the density matrix diagonal elements [S.M. Barnett and S. Stenholm, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 64}, 033808 (2001)]. The main result of the paper is to demonstrate that there exist situations in which the symmetrically ordered characteristic function is perfectly well defined while the corresponding density matrix loses positivity. Therefore nonphysical situations may not show up in the characteristic function. As a consequence, the characteristic function cannot be considered an {\it alternative complete} description of the non-Lindblad dynamics.
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