Correlation decay and Markovianity in open systems

Abstract

A finite quantum system S is coupled to a thermal, bosonic reservoir R. Initial SR states are possibly correlated, obtained by applying a quantum operation taken from a large class, to the uncoupled equilibrium state. We show that the full system-reservoir dynamics is given by a markovian term plus a correlation term, plus a remainder small in the coupling constant $\lambda$ uniformly for all times $t\ge 0$. The correlation term decays polynomially in time, at a speed independent of $\lambda$. After this, the markovian term becomes dominant, where the system evolves according to the completely positive, trace-preserving semigroup generated by the Davies generator, while the reservoir stays stationary in equilibrium. This shows that (a) after initial SR correlations decay, the SR dynamics enters a regime where both the Born and Markov approximations are valid, and (b) the reduced system dynamics is markovian for all times, even for correlated SR initial states.