Asymptotic relaxation in quantum Markovian dynamics

Abstract: We investigate the long-time dynamics of generic time-dependent Lindblad master equations. In particular, we provide sufficient conditions such that asymptotically the dynamics is independent on the initial state preparation. These conditions represent a natural extension of Spohn's theorem to the case of a time-dependent generator. To illustrate our results, we analyse a quantum thermodynamics scenario and discuss the uniqueness of the limit cycle in a continuous Otto engine fuelled by a driven Ising chain, where the dissipation is described by non-local jump operators. As corollary of our main result, we show that any master equation which exhibits non-Markovianity in a finite time interval can be equally addressed by means of our approach. These findings pave the way for developing a more general theory of relaxation beyond the Markovian case.