Understand
If an open quantum system is initially uncorrelated from its environment, then its dynamics can be written in terms of a Lindblad-form master equation.
- The master equation is divided into a unitary piece, represented by an effective Hamiltonian, and a dissipative piece, represented by a hermiticity-preserving superoperator; however, the division of open system dynamics into unitary and dissipative pieces is non-unique.
- For finite-dimensional quantum systems, we resolve this non-uniqueness by specifying a norm on the space of dissipative superoperators and defining the canonical Hamiltonian to be the one whose dissipator is minimal.
- We show that the canonical Hamiltonian thus defined is equivalent to the Hamiltonian initially defined by Lindblad, and that it is uniquely specified by requiring the dissipator's jump operators to be traceless, extending a uniqueness result known previously in the special case of Markovian master equations.