Polaron Transformed Canonically Consistent Quantum Master Equation

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 3 Apr 2026] Polaron Transformed Canonically Consistent Quantum Master Equation Juzar Thingna, Xiansong Xu, Daniel Manzano A central challenge in the theory of open quantum systems is the development of theoretical frameworks capable of accurately describing large, strongly interacting quantum many-body systems in the regime of strong system-bath interaction. In this work, we take a step toward this goal by formulating a polaron-transformed version of the canonically consistent quantum master equation (CCQME) [T. Becker et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 200403 (2022)]. The CCQME extends beyond standard weak-coupling approaches while retaining the same numerical complexity as conventional quantum master equations, thereby enabling the treatment of large quantum systems. The polaron transformation further enhances the accessible system-bath interaction strengths, allowing us to move from moderate to strong interaction regimes. We present a unified and transparent derivation of these two approaches and combine them to obtain the polaron-transformed CCQME (PT-CCQME). Applying our method to the paradigmatic spin-boson model, we find excellent agreement with numerically exact time-evolving matrix product operator (TEMPO) simulations. Finally, we predict an initial-state-independent slowing down of thermalization in the strong-coupling regime of the spin-boson model. Comments: 15 pages, 3 figures, submitted to the Journal of Chemical Physics (Festschrift in honor of Jianshu Cao: Non-equilibrium kinetics and quantum dynamics), and comments are welcome Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) Cite as: arXiv:2604.02731 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2604.02731v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.02731 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Juzar Thingna Dr [view email] [v1] Fri, 3 Apr 2026 04:49:43 UTC (659 KB) Access Paper: HTML (experimental) view license Current browse context: quant-ph < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cond-mat cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.stat-mech References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)