An Introduction to Operational Quantum Dynamics

Abstract

This special volume celebrates the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the Gorini-Kossakowski-Sudarshan-Lindblad master equation, which is widely used in quantum physics and quantum chemistry. The present contribution aims to celebrate a related discovery — also by Sudarshan — that of Quantum Maps (which had their 55th anniversary in the same year). Nowadays, much like the master equation, quantum maps are ubiquitous in physics and chemistry. Their importance in quantum information and related fields cannot be overstated. Here, we motivate quantum maps from a tomographic perspective, and derive their well-known representations. We then dive into the murky world beyond these maps, where recent research has yielded their generalisation to non-Markovian quantum processes.