Stochastic Feshbach Projection for the Dynamics of Open Quantum Systems

Abstract: We present a stochastic projection formalism for the description of quantum dynamics in Bosonic or spin environments. The Schr\"odinger equation in coherent state representation with respect to the environmental degrees of freedom can be reformulated by employing the Feshbach partitioning technique for open quantum systems based on the introduction of suitable non-Hermitian projection operators. In this picture the reduced state of the system can be obtained as a stochastic average over pure state trajectories. The corresponding non-Markovian stochastic Schr\"odinger equations include a memory integral over the past states. In the case of harmonic environments and linear coupling the approach gives a new form of the established non-Markovian quantum state diffusion (NMQSD) stochastic Schr\"odinger equation without functional derivatives. Utilizing spin coherent states, the evolution equation for spin environments resembles the Bosonic case with, however, a non-Gaussian average for the reduced density operator.