Objectivity in the non-Markovian spin-boson model

Objectivity constitutes one of the main features of the macroscopic classical world. An important aspect of the quantum-to-classical transition issue is to explain how such a property arises from the microscopic quantum theory. Recently, within the framework of open quantum systems, there has been proposed such a mechanism in terms of the so-called spectrum broadcast structures. These are multipartite quantum states of the system of interest and a part of its environment, assumed to be under an observation. This approach requires a departure from the standard open quantum systems methods, as the environment cannot be completely neglected. In the present paper we study the emergence of such a state structure in one of the canonical models of the condensed-matter theory: the spin-boson model, describing the dynamics of a two-level system coupled to an environment made up by a large number of harmonic oscillators. We pay much attention to the behavior of the model in the non-Markovian regime, in order to provide a testbed to analyze how the non-Markovian nature of the evolution affects the surfacing of a spectrum broadcast structure.

Objectivity in the non-Markovian spin-boson model Articles