Master equations for correlated quantum channels (1105.4506v1)

Abstract: We derive the general form of a master equation describing the interaction of an arbitrary multipartite quantum system, consisting of a set of subsystems, with an environment, consisting of a large number of sub-envirobments. Each subsystem "collides" with the same sequence of sub-environments which, in between the collisions, evolve according to a map that mimics relaxations effects. No assumption is made on the specific nature of neither the system nor the environment. In the weak coupling regime, we show that the collisional model produces a correlated Markovian evolution for the joint density matrix of the multipartite system. The associated Linblad super-operator contains pairwise terms describing cross correlation between the different subsystems.