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Why do time evolution semigroups have to be contracting?

Physics Asked by Suppenkasper on February 5, 2021

Studying the theory of open quantum systems, some textbooks start by introducing the notion of a semigroup for the time evolution operator $T_t$. The next step then usually is to impose that such a semigroup should be contracting, i.e. $||T_t|| leq 1$ for every $tgeq0$. This can be found for example in Open Quantum Systems: An Introduction by Rivas & Huelga.

Why is it important physically, that the time evolution semigroup is contracting? Why do we not demand that it conserves the norm of a state, i.e. $||T_t|| = 1$?

Update after discussion with Valter Moretti: Is a contracting semigroup always associated to Markovian dynamics? Do all Markovian systems show contracting semigroup time evolutions?

One Answer

I do not know the general context, but I see that the book deals with open systems. The probability is not conserved, in general, for open systems. However it cannot increase (it remains a probability).

The condition $||T_t||leq 1$ implies $$||T_tpsi|| leq ||T_t||: ||psi_1|| leq 1 cdot 1 =1$$ as wanted, if $psi$ is the normalized initial state vector. On the other hand, if $$||T_tpsi||leq 1$$ for every normalized vector $psi$, the very definition of norm of operator implies $||T_t|| leq 1$.

In summary, $||T_t||leq 1$ is equivalent to the fact that the probability cannot increase but it may decrease.

Answered by Valter Moretti on February 5, 2021

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