Title: Non-Markovianity in Quantum Mechanics

Speaker: Göktuğ Karpat (UNESP-Bauru, Sao Paulo)

Date/Time: 23 July 2014, Wednesday, 13:40

Place: FENS G025

Abstract:

Memory effects govern the way a physical system responds to the action
of its surroundings. It is a characteristic of non-Markovian quantum
evolution that the environment affects the system relaxation and
decoherence through a back-flow of energy and information,
respectively. To characterize the non-Markovianity of a given system
evolution through a meaningful measure is therefore of utmost relevance.

In this talk, we first discuss the recent approaches to the identification and
quantification of non-Markovian behavior in quantum dynamical processes. Then,
we propose an entanglement-based measure of non-Markovianity, employing the
concept of assisted knowledge where the environment E acquires information
about a system S by means of its measurement apparatus A. While the accessible
information that E can acquire about S, via interaction with A, is monotonously
increasing for all Markovian quantum processes, it signals a back-flow
of information in case of non-Markovian processes. We present an
experimental demonstration of this scenario using an optical-based
setup that allows full access to the environmental degrees of freedom.