Geometrical characterization of non-Markovianity

Abstract

We introduce a new tool for the quantitative characterisation of the departure form Markovianity of a given dynamical process. Our tool can be applied to a generic $N$-level system and extended straightforwardly to Gaussian continuous-variable systems. It is linked to the change of the volume of physical states that are dynamically accessible to a system and provides qualitative expectations in agreement with some of the analogous tools proposed so far. We illustrate its prediticve power by tackling a few canonical examples.