The role of environmental correlations in the non-Markovian dynamics of a spin system

Abstract: We put forward a framework to study the dynamics of a chain of interacting quantum particles affected by individual or collective multi-mode environment, focussing on the role played by the environmental quantum correlations over the evolution of the chain. The presence of entanglement in the state of the environmental system magnifies the non-Markovian nature of the chain's dynamics, giving rise to structures in figures of merit such as entanglement and purity that are not observed under a separable multi-mode environment. Our analysis can be relevant to problems tackling the open-system dynamics of biological complexes of strong current interest.