State Space Decomposition of Quantum Dynamical Semigroups

Abstract: The mean evolution of an open quantum system in continuous time is described by a time continuous semigroup of quantum channels (completely positive and trace-preserving linear maps). Baumgartner and Narnhofer presented a general decomposition of the underlying Hilbert space into a sum of invariant subspaces, also called enclosures. We propose a new reading of this result, inspired by the work of Carbone and Pautrat. In addition, we apply this decomposition to a class of open quantum random walks and to quantum trajectories, where we study its uniqueness.