Pseudomodes as an effective description of memory: Non-Markovian dynamics of two-state systems in structured reservoirs

Abstract

We investigate the non-Markovian dynamics of two-state systems in structured reservoirs. We establish a connection between two theoretical quantum approaches, the pseudomodes [B. M. Garraway, Phys. Rev. A 55, 2290 (1997)] and the recently developed non-Markovian quantum jump method [J. Piilo et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 180402 (2008)]. This connection provides a clear physical picture of how the structured reservoir affects the system dynamics, indicating the role of the pseudomodes as an effective description of the environmental memory.