On the structure of the exact master equation

Abstract: We derive a master equation from the exact stochastic Liouville von-Neumann (SLN) equation \cite{stockburger2002,wallsbook}. The latter depends on two correlated noises and describes exactly the dynamics of an oscillator (which can be either harmonic or present an anharmonicity) coupled to an environment at thermal equilibrium. The newly derived master equation is obtained by performing analytically the average over different noise trajectories. It is found to have a complex hierarchical structure that might be helpful to explain the convergence problems occurring when performing numerically the stochastic average of trajectories given by the SLN equation \cite{koch2008,koch2010}.