Differential Equation Based Path Integral for System-Bath Dynamics

Abstract: We propose the differential equation based path integral (DEBPI) method to simulate the real-time evolution of open quantum systems. In this method, a system of partial differential equations is derived based on the continuation of a classical numerical method called iterative quasi-adiabatic propagator path integral (i-QuAPI). While the resulting system has infinite equations, we introduce a reasonable closure to obtain a series of finite systems. New numerical schemes can be derived by discretizing these differential equations. It is numerically verified that in certain cases, by selecting appropriate systems and applying suitable numerical schemes, the memory cost required in the i-QuAPI method can be significantly reduced.