NON-MARKOVIAN EFFECTS IN THE LINDBLAD MASTER EQUATION APPROACH TO ELECTRONIC TRANSPORT

摘要

Non-equilibrium processes in open quantum systems can be generically described within the framework of the Lindblad master equation i.e. without a memory kernel. This statement holds even for processes where information can flow-back from the environment to the system. This rather contra-intuitive fact lead to define a process as non Markovian if, during the time evolution of two different initial states of the system, their distinguishability increases, reflecting a back-flow of information from the environment to the system. However, for non Markovian dynamics, the set of conditions to ensure the positivity of the density matrix for all times is not known, making difficult the explicit construction of non Markovian Lindblad operators. Using the Keldysh non equilibrium Green's functions, we explicitly solve a generic quadratic model of electrons coupled at t= 0 to a set of wide-band baths characterized by temperature and chemical potential. We identify the equivalent Lindblad operators describing the evolution of the density matrix and show that the resulting dynamical process is generically non Markovian. We further discuss the cases in which Markovian dynamics is recovered. We apply our approach to a simple model for electronic transport thought a one dimensional wire coupled at t= 0 to wide-band metallic leads, and to a XY spin chain attached to two contacts.