Non-conservative Forces via Quantum Reservoir Engineering

TL;DR

This paper presents a systematic method for designing quantum environments that control wavepacket dynamics, enabling non-conservative forces to guide quantum states without necessarily causing decoherence, thus expanding the capabilities of quantum reservoir engineering.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel systematic approach for quantum reservoir engineering that allows for the realization of non-conservative forces while maintaining quantum coherence.

Findings

Environment-assisted tunneling demonstrated

Purity can be preserved despite non-conservative forces

Flexible control of quantum dynamics shown

Abstract

A systematic approach is given for engineering dissipative environments that steer quantum wavepackets along desired trajectories. The methodology is demonstrated with several illustrative examples: environment-assisted tunneling, trapping, effective mass assignment, and pseudo-relativistic behavior. Non-conservative stochastic forces do not inevitably lead to decoherence - we show that purity can be well-preserved. These findings highlight the flexibility offered by non-equilibrium open quantum dynamics.