Revealing the physical structure of the general quantum master equation

Quantum Physics [Submitted on 15 Apr 2026] Revealing the physical structure of the general quantum master equation Eugenia Pyurbeeva, Ronnie Kosloff The Lindblad (GKLS) master equation, which represents the mathematical form for the general evolution of a density matrix, is a versatile and widely-used tool in open quantum systems. In contrast with the typical approach of imposing additional conditions on the system, such as weak coupling or energy conservation, we explore the structure of the equation with no assumptions. We demonstrate that general quantum dynamics can be expressed through a combination of free evolution, exchanges of some physical quantities (generalised charges), not necessarily commuting with the Hamiltonian, between the system and the bath, and pure dephasing. This result comprises a novel perspective on quantum master equations, employing physical processes as elemental parts. We use it to explore the dynamics and stationary states of a two-level system and show that strong coupling, particle exchange, and non-Abelian effects all share the same physical origin. Moreover, we demonstrate that the generalised Gibbs state for all three cases contains a non-commutation term, which has not been previously considered. Comments: 11 pages, 1 figure Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph); Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall); Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech) Cite as: arXiv:2604.14382 [quant-ph]   (or arXiv:2604.14382v1 [quant-ph] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.14382 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Eugenia Pyurbeeva [view email] [v1] Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:57:16 UTC (72 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?)