Quasi-locality and efficient simulation of Markovian quantum dynamics

Abstract: We consider open many-body systems governed by a time-dependent quantum master equation with short-range interactions. With a generalized Lieb-Robinson bound, we show that the evolution in this very generic framework is quasi-local, i.e., the evolution of observables can be approximated by implementing the dynamics only in a vicinity of the observables' support. The precision increases exponentially with the diameter of the considered subsystem. Hence, the time-evolution can be simulated on classical computers with a cost that is independent of the system size. Providing error bounds for Trotter decompositions, we conclude that the simulation on a quantum computer is additionally efficient in time. For experiments and simulations, our result can be used to rigorously bound finite-size effects.