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# Measurement of the Branching Fraction for Inclusive Semileptonic 𝐵 Meson Decays

BABAR-PUB-02-011
SLAC-PUB-9306

The BABAR Collaboration

## Abstract

A largely model-independent measurement of the inclusive electron momentum spectrum and branching fraction for semileptonic decays of $`B`$ mesons is presented based on data recorded at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ resonance with the BABAR detector. Backgrounds from secondary charm decays are separated from prompt $`B`$ decays using charge and angular correlations between the electron from one $`B`$ meson and a high momentum electron tag from the second $`B`$ meson. The resulting branching fraction is $`(BXe\nu )=`$ $`(10.87\pm 0.18(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.30(\mathrm{syst}))\%`$. Based on this measurement we determine the CKM matrix element $`|V_{cb}|`$.

Measurements of semileptonic $`B`$ meson decays are a good way to determine the CKM matrix elements $`|V_{cb}|`$ and $`|V_{ub}|`$, two of the parameters of the Standard Model. For $`|V_{cb}|`$, analyses of exclusive and inclusive decays have resulted in comparable precision. While most measured values of $`(BXe\nu )`$ are below 11% PDG00 , theoretical calculations including perturbative QCD contributions predict values of 12% or above slcalc .

The measurement presented here employs the method introduced by ARGUS ARGUS93  and later used by CLEO CLEO96 , in which $`B\overline{B}`$ events are tagged by the presence of a high momentum lepton. As a tag, we choose electrons with momentum $`p^{}`$ in the interval 1.4 to 2.3 $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$, where $`p^{}`$ is measured in the center-of-mass frame. A second electron in the event is taken as the signal lepton for which we require $`p^{}>0.6\mathrm{GeV}/c`$, to avoid large backgrounds at lower momenta. Signal electrons are mostly from primary $`B`$ decays if they are accompanied by a tag electron of opposite charge (unlike-sign). Those with a tag of the same charge (like-sign) originate predominantly from secondary decays of charm particles produced in the decay of the other $`B`$ meson. Inversion of this charge correlation due to $`B^0\overline{B}^0`$ mixing is treated explicitly, and unlike-sign pairs with both electrons originating from the same $`B`$ meson are isolated kinematically. With a small model-dependence on the estimated fraction of primary electrons below $`p^{}=0.6\mathrm{GeV}/c`$, we infer the semileptonic $`B`$ branching fraction from the background corrected ratio of unlike-sign electron pairs to tag electrons.

This measurement is based on data recorded in the year 2000 with the BABAR detector BABARDET  at the PEP-II energy asymmetric $`e^+e^{}`$ storage ring PEPII  at SLAC. The detector consists of a five-layer silicon vertex tracker (SVT), a 40-layer drift chamber (DCH), a detector of internally-reflected Cherenkov light (DIRC), and an electromagnetic calorimeter (EMC) all embedded in a solenoidal magnetic field of 1.5 T and surrounded by an instrumented flux return (IFR). To ensure the high quality of the data, we have selected the largest contiguous block of events with identical and stable detector conditions in the year 2000, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.1$`\text{ fb}^1`$ collected at the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ resonance, and 0.97$`\text{ fb}^1`$ recorded about 40$`\mathrm{MeV}`$ below the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ peak (off-resonance).

Multihadron events are selected by requiring a charged track multiplicity of $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}>4`$, or $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}=4`$ plus at least 2 neutral energy deposits above 80$`\mathrm{MeV}`$ in the EMC. Track pairs from converted photons are not included in $`N_{\mathrm{ch}}`$, but count as one neutral particle. For further suppression of non-$`B\overline{B}`$ events, we require $`R_2<0.6`$, where $`R_2`$ is the ratio of Fox-Wolfram moments $`H_2/H_0`$ FoxWolfram .

The electron momentum measurement and identification are critical for this analysis. For electron candidates we require hits in at least 12 DCH layers, and a polar angle $`\theta `$ within the EMC acceptance, i.e. $`0.72<\mathrm{cos}\theta <0.92`$. To reduce the contamination from photon conversions and beam-gas background we require the track impact parameters in the plane perpendicular to the beams and along the detector axis to be less than 0.25$`\mathrm{cm}`$ and 3.0$`\mathrm{cm}`$, respectively.

The track finding efficiency $`ϵ_{trk}`$ is determined from data as a function of charged multiplicity, transverse momentum, polar and azimuthal angle. For signal electrons with $`p^{}>0.6\mathrm{GeV}/c`$, the average efficiency is $`(97.1\pm 1.1)\%`$.

Electron identification is based on the ratio of the energy in the EMC and the track momentum, $`E_{\text{EMC}}/p`$, the shower shape in the EMC, the specific energy loss $`\mathrm{d}E/\mathrm{d}x`$ in the DCH, and the number of Cherenkov photons and the Cherenkov angle measured in the DIRC. Muons are eliminated on the basis of $`\mathrm{d}E/\mathrm{d}x`$ and $`E_{\text{EMC}}/p`$. Taking into account the correlations between deposited energy and shape in hadronic showers, we combine probability density functions derived from data samples for each discriminating variable to construct the likelihood function $`L(\xi )`$, $`\xi \{e,\pi ,K,p\}`$. A track is identified as an electron if

$$\frac{L(e)}{L(e)+5L(\pi )+L(K)+0.1L(p)}>0.95.$$

The weights roughly reflect the relative abundances, their exact values not being crucial for electron identification.

We measure the electron identification efficiency as a function of $`p^{}`$ and center-of-mass polar angle $`\theta ^{}`$ using radiative Bhabha events. For momenta $`p^{}>0.6\mathrm{GeV}/c`$, the average efficiency is 92% (see Figure 1a). However, Monte Carlo simulations indicate that relative to radiative Bhabha events, the identification efficiency in $`B\overline{B}`$ events is reduced between $`(4\pm 2)\%`$ at low momenta ($`p^{}<`$ 1$`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$) and $`(2\pm 1)\%`$ above $`p^{}=1.6`$ $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$. We correct the measured efficiency for this momentum-dependent difference.

The misidentification rates for pions, kaons, and protons are extracted from control samples selected from data. Figure 1b shows the misidentification probabilities $`\eta _h`$ per hadronic track, where the relative abundance of pions, kaons, and protons is taken from $`B\overline{B}`$ Monte Carlo simulation. The DCH and DIRC contribute significantly at low momenta, while the performance of the EMC increases with $`p^{}`$. This leads to a minimum of 0.05% for $`\eta _h`$ at $`1<p^{}<1.3\mathrm{GeV}/c`$. The relative systematic error is estimated to be 15% from the purities of the control samples and the uncertainties in the relative abundances.

The branching fraction analysis makes use of three samples: (1) the tag electrons, (2) unlike-sign and (3) like-sign pairs of a tag and a signal electron candidate. Misidentified hadrons and electrons from non-$`B\overline{B}`$ (continuum) events, photon conversions, $`\pi ^0,\eta \gamma e^+e^{}`$(“Dalitz”) and $`J/\psi ,\psi (2S)e^+e^{}`$ decays contribute to the background in all three samples. The unlike-sign sample also contains pairs of primary and secondary electrons from the same $`B`$ meson decay. Further contaminations to the like- and unlike-sign samples arise from decays of $`\tau `$ leptons and charmed mesons produced in $`bc\overline{c}s`$ decays. Apart from the correction for unlike-sign electron pairs from the same $`B`$, which is performed in bins of $`p^{}`$ only, all background corrections are performed in bins of $`p^{}`$ and polar angle $`\theta ^{}`$.

The continuum background is subtracted from all three samples. It is obtained by normalizing the observed off-resonance spectra by the ratio of on- to off-resonance integrated luminosities. The relative systematic error in this ratio is estimated to be 0.5%, attributed to variations in the detector performance over time. The continuum momenta are scaled by the ratio $`\sqrt{s_{on}}`$/$`\sqrt{s_{off}}`$ to compensate for the 0.4% lower center-of-mass energy.

Electrons from photon conversions and Dalitz decays are identified by pairing them with any oppositely charged track with transverse momentum $`p_t>0.1\mathrm{GeV}/c`$. We distinguish the two sources of pairs by the distance $`R_{pair}`$ of the pair vertex from the detector axis. Photon conversions are identified by requiring $`R_{pair}>1.6\mathrm{cm}`$, a pair invariant mass $`M_{ee}<100\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$, and the transverse and longitudinal distances between the two tracks at the point of closest approach $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}<0.3\mathrm{cm}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_z<1.0\mathrm{cm}`$. For Dalitz pairs, we require $`R_{pair}<1.6\mathrm{cm}`$, $`M_{ee}<200\mathrm{MeV}/c^2`$, $`\mathrm{\Delta }_{xy}<0.2\mathrm{cm}`$ and $`\mathrm{\Delta }_z<1.0\mathrm{cm}`$. The momentum- and polar angle-dependent pair finding efficiency, which is obtained from a full detector simulation, is low since, in most cases, the momentum of the second track is too small to produce a track in the DCH. It varies between 30% and 40% for photon conversions and between 20% and 30% for Dalitz pairs. From a detailed comparison between data and simulation, including the energy spectra of the pairs, the relative systematic uncertainties are estimated to be 13% and 19% for the conversion and Dalitz background rates, respectively.

In the unlike-sign sample, electrons from primary and charm decays of the same $`B`$ tend to be produced in opposite directions. Defining $`\widehat{p}_e^{}`$ as the center of the signal electron momentum bin, this background is reduced by a factor of 24 by imposing the condition

$$\mathrm{cos}\alpha >1.0\widehat{p}_e^{}/(\mathrm{GeV}/c)\mathrm{and}\mathrm{cos}\alpha >0.2$$
(1)
on the opening angle $`\alpha `$ of $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs, measured in the $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ frame. Since $`B`$ mesons are nearly at rest in this frame, there is no angular correlation between two electrons from different $`B`$ mesons, and the loss in signal efficiency can be calculated on the basis of geometrical acceptance.

This selection also eliminates most $`e^+e^{}`$ pairs from inclusive $`BJ/\psi X`$ decays. Electron candidates that can be combined with an oppositely charged electron to form an invariant mass consistent with the $`J/\psi `$ hypothesis, $`2.90<M_{ee}<3.15\mathrm{GeV}/c^2`$, are excluded from the tag sample if $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha <0.2`$.

The contribution of unlike-sign pairs from the same $`B`$ decay satisfying Eq. 1 is approximately 2%. After subtraction of background contributions from continuum, photon conversions and Dalitz decays, the observed opening angle distribution (without the requirement) contains a flat contribution from electron pairs from different $`B`$ mesons and a contribution from electron pairs from the same $`B`$, which peaks at $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha =1`$. The shape of the non-flat background is taken from Monte Carlo simulation and the relative normalization of the two contributions is determined by a fit to the data, which is performed separately for each 100 $`\mathrm{MeV}/c`$-wide momentum bin below 1.2 $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$. The integral over the fitted non-flat contribution between the minimal allowed value of $`\mathrm{cos}\alpha `$ and 1 is taken as the residual background (Figure 2). The very small background above 1.2 $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$ (0.8% of the total contribution) is determined from Monte Carlo simulation with a relative uncertainty of 50%.

We have studied systematic uncertainties in the predicted opening angle distributions by varying the branching fractions of $`BDe\nu `$, $`BD^{}e\nu `$, $`BD^{}e\nu `$ and non-resonant $`BD^{()}\pi e\nu `$ decays by one standard deviation around current average values PDG00 . Based on detailed studies and variations of the fit, the combined systematic error for this background is estimated to be 5%.

Figure 3 shows the observed momentum spectra and the individual background contributions discussed so far, corrected for tracking efficiency; a summary of yields is given in Table 1. Following this initial set of background corrections, the electron yield is corrected for electron identification efficiency.

Background contributions from $`B\overline{D}D_{(s)}X`$, $`D_{(s)}e\nu _eY`$ decays and $`B\tau e`$ decays are estimated by Monte Carlo simulation, using the currently known branching fractions. Combining $`(D_sXe\nu )=(8.12\pm 0.68)\%`$, which is computed from the average $`D`$ branching fraction $`(D^{0,+}Xe\nu )`$ PDG00  and the lifetime ratios $`\tau _{D^{0,+}}/\tau _{D_s}`$, with $`(BD_sX)=(9.8\pm 3.7)\%`$ cerncombined2001  yields $`(BD_se)=(0.80\pm 0.31)\%`$. We take the inclusive branching fraction $`(B\overline{D}D^{()}X)`$ to be $`(8.2\pm 1.3)\%`$ cerncombined2001 . Assuming equal production rates of $`D`$ and $`D^{}`$, but allowing for any ratio in the systematic error, we arrive at $`(BDe)=(0.84\pm 0.21)\%`$. To estimate the contribution of electrons from $`\tau `$ decays, we use $`(BX\tau \nu )`$ = $`(2.6\pm 0.2)\%`$, $`(D_s\tau \nu )`$ = $`(5.79\pm 2.00)\%`$ dstotau  and $`(\tau e\nu _e\overline{\nu }_\tau )=(17.83\pm 0.06)\%`$ PDG00 . This leads to $`(B\tau e)`$ = $`(0.565\pm 0.063)\%`$, where the $`\tau `$ lepton originates either directly from a $`B`$ decay or a $`BD_s\tau `$ cascade. The background from $`J/\psi `$ and $`\psi (2S)`$ decays into two electrons is also estimated from Monte Carlo simulation, with $`(BJ/\psi e^+e^{})`$ = $`(6.82\pm 0.38)\times 10^4`$ and $`(B\psi (2S)e^+e^{})`$ = $`(3.1\pm 0.6)\times 10^5`$ PDG00 .

The tag electron sample is first corrected for continuum background and hadron misidentification. The remaining background is from secondary decays of charm particles and unvetoed $`J/\psi e^+e^{}`$ decays. All these contributions are estimated by Monte Carlo simulation, leading to the background-subtracted number of tag electrons $`N_{\mathrm{tag}}=304,048\pm 880(\mathrm{stat})\pm 2,100(\mathrm{syst})`$ (Table 1), including a correction for signal loss due to the $`J/\psi `$-veto.

Due to $`B^0\overline{B}^0`$ flavor oscillations, electrons from primary $`B`$ decays and $`B\overline{D}X`$, $`\overline{D}e^{}\nu _eY`$ cascades contribute to both unlike- and like-sign spectra. Denoting the efficiency of the opening angle cut as $`ϵ_\alpha (p^{})`$, their $`p^{}`$ distributions can be written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{ϵ_\alpha (p^{})}}{\displaystyle \frac{dN^+}{dp^{}}}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{dN_{BXe\nu }}{dp^{}}}(1\chi )+{\displaystyle \frac{dN_{B\overline{D}Xe\nu }}{dp^{}}}\chi ,`$
$`{\displaystyle \frac{dN^{\pm \pm }}{dp^{}}}`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{dN_{BXe\nu }}{dp^{}}}\chi +{\displaystyle \frac{dN_{B\overline{D}Xe\nu }}{dp^{}}}(1\chi ),`$
where $`\chi `$ is the product of the $`B^0\overline{B}^0`$ mixing parameter $`\chi _0=0.174\pm 0.009`$ PDG00  and $`f_0=(\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)B^0\overline{B}{}_{}{}^{0})`$. Since the measured ratio of charged to neutral $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ decays is consistent with unity CLEOupsilon , we assume $`f_0=0.500\pm 0.025`$, where the error is taken from CLEOupsilon . We use these linear equations to determine the primary electron spectrum from $`B`$ decays, $`dN_{BXe\nu }/dp^{}`$. Integration of this spectrum between 0.6 and 2.5 $`\mathrm{GeV}/c`$ yields $`N_{BXe\nu }=25,070\pm 410(\mathrm{stat})`$. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we determine the relative efficiency for selecting events with two electrons compared to events with a single tag to be $`ϵ_{evt}=(98.0\pm 0.5)\%`$. Together with the polar angle acceptance $`ϵ_{geom}=84\%`$, we obtain the partial branching fraction

$`(BXe\nu ,`$ $`p^{}>0.6\mathrm{GeV}/c)={\displaystyle \frac{N_{BXe\nu }}{N_{tag}ϵ_{brem}ϵ_{evt}ϵ_{geom}}}`$
$`=(10.24\pm 0.17(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.26(\mathrm{syst}))\%,`$
which includes a correction for the small loss of electrons due to bremsstrahlung in the detector material and the limited momentum resolution, $`1ϵ_{brem}=(2.20\pm 0.35)\%`$. The contributions to the systematic error are listed in Table 2. Figure 4 shows the momentum spectrum of primary electrons.

To determine the total semileptonic branching fraction, we need to extrapolate the spectrum to $`p^{}=0`$. This is achieved by fitting the data to the sum of the spectra from the various exclusive decays. We use a parameterization of HQET-derived form factors CLEOHQET2 ; CLEOHQET  to model the decays $`BDe\nu `$ and $`BD^{}e\nu `$, and the work of Goity and Roberts roberts  for non-resonant $`BD^{()}\pi e\nu `$ decays. Semileptonic $`B`$ decays to $`D^{}e\nu `$ and charmless mesons are described by the ISGW2 model isgw2 , which is also used as an alternative description for the processes $`BDe\nu `$ and $`BD^{}e\nu `$. Photon radiation in the final state is modeled by PHOTOS photos . The relative contributions of the different exclusive decay modes are constrained to be within two standard deviations of the measured average branching fractions PDG00 . The best estimate for the extrapolation factor is $`1+\kappa =1.061\pm 0.009`$, where the error accounts for the observed variations of the fit results for different decay models and branching fractions. This extrapolation leads to a total semileptonic branching fraction $`_{SL}`$ of

$$(BXe\nu )=(10.87\pm 0.18(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.30(\mathrm{syst}))\%.$$

One of the limiting factors of this analysis is the background at low momenta, especially semileptonic decays of charmed mesons produced in $`bc\overline{c}s`$ decays. As shown in Table 3, raising the minimum momentum requirement $`p_{min}^{}`$ reduces the systematic uncertainty due to this background substantially, but also increases the error on the extrapolation to $`p^{}=0`$. We choose $`p_{min}^{}=0.6\mathrm{GeV}/c`$ for the final result, since the systematic error is comparable with higher values of $`p_{min}^{}`$, while the model-dependence is significantly lower.

Based on the work by Hoang et al. hoang , we relate the decay rate and the modulus of the CKM matrix element $`V_{cb}`$ by

$`|V_{cb}|=`$ $`(41.9\pm 2.0)\times 10^3`$
$`\times \sqrt{(BX_ce\nu )/\mathrm{\hspace{0.33em}0.105}}\sqrt{1.6\mathrm{ps}/\tau _B}.`$
Using $`\tau _B=(1.601\pm 0.021)\mathrm{ps}`$ and $`(BX_ue\nu )=(1.7\pm 0.6)\times 10^3`$ PDG00  , we obtain $`|V_{cb}|`$ = $`0.0423\pm 0.0007(\text{exp})\pm 0.0020(\text{theory})`$.

In conclusion, we have used electrons in $`\mathrm{{\rm Y}}(4S)`$ decays tagged by a high momentum electron to measure $`(BXe\nu )`$= $`(10.87\pm 0.18(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.30(\mathrm{syst}))\%`$. This measurement is largely model-independent. The result is in agreement with previous measurements CLEO96 ; LEP , but the systematic uncertainties are reduced. However, the poorly known branching fractions in $`B`$ and $`D_{(s)}`$ decays lead to significant systematic uncertainties in the background subtraction. The resulting measurement of $`|V_{cb}|`$ remains dominated by theoretical uncertainties. It has recently been shown that non-perturbative effects can be assessed by measurements of moments of inclusive distributions moments .

We are grateful for the excellent luminosity and machine conditions provided by our PEP-II colleagues, and for the substantial dedicated effort from the computing organizations that support BABAR. The collaborating institutions wish to thank SLAC for its support and kind hospitality. This work is supported by DOE and NSF (USA), NSERC (Canada), IHEP (China), CEA and CNRS-IN2P3 (France), BMBF and DFG (Germany), INFN (Italy), NFR (Norway), MIST (Russia), and PPARC (United Kingdom). Individuals have received support from the A. P. Sloan Foundation, Research Corporation, and Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.


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# An unexpectedly high AGN fraction in red cluster galaxies

## 1 Introduction

Both star formation and accretion onto supermassive black holes require reservoirs of cold gas. The presence of nuclear activity in cluster galaxies is therefore an indication of the efficiency with which these galaxies were stripped of their cold interstellar medium, and to what extent their central, supermassive black holes may continue to grow in cluster environments. The evolution of the fraction of cluster galaxies which host active galactic nuclei (AGN) is therefore an important component of galaxy evolution in clusters. Determination of the connection between AGN and the history of infall and star formation for host galaxies may also provide interesting constraints on the fueling and lifetimes of nuclear activity. AGN in clusters of galaxies may be a significant contribution to the radio and infrared sources in clusters, and need to be identified in order to use such measurements to infer star formation rates (e.g. Duc et al., 2002).

It is not yet known if the AGN fraction in clusters of galaxies shows any evolution with redshift, although there is clear evidence for evolution in cluster galaxies. The fraction of galaxies with recent star formation decreases significantly from $`z0.5`$ to the present (the Butcher-Oemler effect; Butcher & Oemler, 1978, 1984) and the fraction of poststarburst galaxies also has decreased dramatically over this same redshift range (Dressler & Shectman, 1988; Dressler et al., 1999) and much more so than in the field (Zabludoff et al., 1996; Dressler et al., 1999). The current best estimate of the mean cluster AGN fraction is $`1`$% (e.g. Dressler & Gunn, 1983; Dressler et al., 1999), a factor of a few less than the bright AGN fraction in the field (e.g. Huchra & Burg, 1992). These measurements of the AGN fraction in clusters and the field are the result of extremely large, spectroscopic surveys of galaxies. However, the fraction of all galaxies that are bright AGN is small; this makes spectroscopic searches inefficient and any evolution in the host galaxy population difficult to detect. A related problem is that AGN may not be obvious at visible wavelengths, whether due to moderate line strengths compared to the host galaxy light, or obscuration.

A better way to search for AGN is at X-ray wavelengths. While AGN comprise only a small minority of all galaxies at visible wavelengths, they are the dominant contribution to the luminous, hard (2-10 keV) X-ray point source population. We have begun a program to study the AGN content of clusters of galaxies that have deep observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory. As all luminous AGN produce significant hard X-ray emission, we use the Chandra data to select AGN for spectroscopic observations to determine cluster membership. Chandra data are therefore uniquely suited to identify these AGN due to its superior angular resolution compared to all other X-ray satellites. In this Letter we present our discovery of six previously unknown AGN in Abell 2104, a rich cluster (Abell class 2; Allen et al., 1992) of galaxies at $`z=0.154`$ (Liang et al., 2000).

## 2 Observations

Abell 2104 was observed by Chandra with ACIS-S on 25 May 2000 for 49.83ks. Here we restrict our analysis to the S3 chip, which covers a $`8.9^{}\times 8.9^{}`$ field of view. The hard X-ray flux limit for this observation is approximately $`F_X[210\mathrm{k}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}]>10^{15}`$ erg s-1cm-2. We identified point sources in a smoothed version of the 0.8-10 keV image with SExtractor (Bertin & Arnouts, 1996). Figure 1 shows the X-ray contours, after subtraction of the diffuse cluster component, on a deep $`R`$band image of the inner $`10^{}\times 10^{}`$ of the cluster obtained at the 2.5m du Pont telescope. Fourteen of the X-ray sources have optical counterparts brighter than $`R<22`$ mag; eight have optical counterparts brighter than $`R<20`$ mag. Figure 2 shows a $`BR`$ vs. $`R`$ color–magnitude diagram (small points) and the spectroscopically confirmed cluster members from Liang et al. (2000, filled circles). The X-ray detections (open circles) were not observed by Liang et al. (2000), with the exception of a foreground AGN at $`z=0.0367`$ (star in Figure 2, galaxy #117 in Liang et al.) and one cluster member (our #6, Liang et al. #314).

We observed the seven counterparts with $`R<20`$ mag (we excluded the foreground AGN) with the 6.5m Baade telescope on 6 April 2002. These spectra, shown in Figure 3, were obtained with the Low Dispersion Survey Spectrograph 2 and a $`1.25^{\prime \prime }`$ longslit. All six of the red, $`R<20`$ mag optical counterparts are members of Abell 2104. The seventh, blue counterpart is a QSO at $`z=1.51`$. Based on Chandra observations of blank fields, we expect one or two optically bright X-ray counterparts in an observation with this exposure time (Mushotzky et al., 2000), rather than the eight observed. The X-ray and visible-wavelength properties for our seven spectroscopic targets are provided in Table 1.

Of the six X-ray detected members of Abell 2104, only #1 is a broad-line AGN and this is also the most luminous X-ray source. Only one of the remaining five has any emission lines: the weak \[OIII\] $`\lambda 5007`$Å in #2 (the atmospheric A band falls on H$`\alpha `$ at the cluster redshift). We did not detect \[OII\] $`\lambda 3727`$Å \[OIII\], or H$`\beta `$ emission in any of the remaining objects. The X-ray properties of the point sources were derived using the CIAO software package. Sources #1, 2, 5, and 7 were sufficiently bright to extract and fit X-ray spectra. All three of the cluster members are consistent with high absorbing columns and can only be AGN due to both their luminosities and hard X-ray spectra. We measured hardness ratios ($`F_X[210\mathrm{k}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}]/F_X[0.52\mathrm{k}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{V}]`$) for the remaining three members. Of these three, #6 has a hardness ratio typical of a highly absorbed AGN. The remaining two (#3 and 4) are softer, but still too hard to be explained by thermal emission alone. The hardness ratios of these two objects are consistent with a combination of thermal emission and a powerlaw component. In this model, nearly all of the flux in the 2-10 keV band comes from the powerlaw component. Given the large luminosities of the powerlaw components an AGN likely exists in both of these galaxies.

## 3 Discussion

Only one of the six AGN in Abell 2104, or $`1`$% of the $`100`$ $`R<20`$ mag (rest-frame $`M_V=19.5`$ mag) cluster members, is an obvious AGN in our optical spectra. This is in good agreement with the mean cluster AGN fraction of 1% from optical spectroscopic surveys (Dressler et al., 1999). When Chandra observations are used to identify AGN, the AGN fraction appears to be a factor of five higher, or $`5`$%. To evaluate the significance of this result, we use a simple binomial distribution test. Given an expected AGN fraction of 1%, the variance in the number of AGN in a sample of 100 galaxies is $`100\times 0.01\times 0.99`$. We discovered five more AGN than expected, which is significant at the 5/0.99 or $`5\sigma `$ level. In fact, an AGN fraction of 5% is a lower limit to the true AGN fraction as our observations are not sensitive to more highly obscured AGN. For example, if the lower-luminosity AGN (such as #5 and #6) had a factor of five to ten higher absorbing columns, we would not have detected them; such higher absorption columns are not unusual among nearby field AGN with similar luminosities. There is additional evidence for a larger number of AGN in other clusters of galaxies in recent Chandra observations of point source excesses toward several other clusters (Cappi et al., 2001; Sun & Murray, 2002; Molnar et al., 2002).

Most of the AGN in Abell 2104 lack strong emission lines, which may be due to dilution by host galaxy light. For example, if we use the ratio of \[OIII\]$`\lambda 5007`$Å to hard X-ray flux for source #1 to predict the equivalent widths for the other five sources, the equivalent widths would not be detectable in our spectroscopy. The \[OIII\]$`\lambda 5007`$Å to hard X-ray flux ratio for source #1 is $`10^3`$ and is comparable to many Seyfert 2s (Polletta et al., 1996), although this ratio varies by several orders of magnitude in AGN. Our nondetection of emission lines in these objects could therefore be due to the low signal-to-noise of our spectroscopy, or due to some obscuration of the emission line region. It is not likely that the two X-ray sources with the lowest luminosities are powered by star formation, rather than AGN. While the most luminous local starbursts, such as Arp 220 or NGC 3256, have hard X-ray luminosities comparable to the two faintest sources in Abell 2104 ($`10^{41}`$ erg s-1 Moran et al., 1999; Iwasawa, 1999), our low luminosity sources do not show detectable emission lines indicative of massive star formation. Furthermore, both Arp 220 and NGC 3256 would be 0.3 mag bluer in rest-frame $`BV`$ (or 0.6 mag in observed $`BR`$) than our A2104 optical counterparts. It is therefore more likely that these X-ray sources are powered by nuclear activity. Even if these two X-ray sources do not include an AGN component, the significance of our result changes to (4-1)/0.99 or a $`3\sigma `$ excess over expectations. These AGN, without detectable emission lines, appear similar to the optically bright, hard X-ray population that contribute approximately 40% of the hard X-ray background (Mushotzky et al., 2000). If a significant number of such sources reside in clusters, they may be an important constituent of the hard X-ray background. Their association with the highly biased cluster galaxy population may also explain the variation in the hard X-ray background intensity from field to field discussed by Cowie et al. (2002).

The unexpectedly high AGN fraction in Abell 2104 is comparable to the fraction of galaxies that qualify as Butcher–Oemler galaxies (Butcher & Oemler, 1984) or that are emission-line galaxies (Liang et al., 2000). This AGN fraction, and the fact that it is a lower limit, suggests that obscured AGN may make a significant contribution to infrared and radio sources in cluster galaxies. For example, Duc et al. (2002) concluded that most of their FIR and radio-selected galaxies in Abell 1689 are powered by star formation because they only found optical emission line ratios consistent with AGN in one galaxy. Our result suggests that many of their sources could be AGN that lack strong emission-line features.

Surprisingly, the host galaxies of these AGN all fall near or on the cluster color–magnitude relation (Sandage & Visvanathan, 1978), which is presumably composed of old, quiescent galaxies without the reservoirs of cold gas necessary to fuel AGN. From our ground-based data ($`1^{\prime \prime }`$ seeing FWHM), approximately half of these host galaxies appear to have disk morphologies and half appear to have elliptical or S0 morphologies. They also span approximately three magnitudes in luminosity. Our naive expectation was that the AGN population in clusters should be associated with the blue, starforming galaxies as they have both significant reservoirs of cold gas and are interacting with the cluster potential for the first time. If the AGN lifetime were longer than the typical lifetime of $`0.1`$ Gyr for star forming galaxies in clusters (Poggianti et al., 1999), or there were a long delay before the onset of nuclear activity, AGN might instead be associated with the post-starburst population. In Abell 2104, the brightest three AGN shown in Figure 2 fall on the cluster color–magnitude relation; while the fainter three are slightly bluer, they are not as blue as Butcher-Oemler galaxies. None of these AGN host galaxies have been completely stripped of their cold gas by the cluster potential (e.g. Gunn & Gott, 1972). These galaxies appear to have retained a reservoir of cold gas at the center of their potential wells similar to the dust disks observed in local cluster ellipticals (e.g. Jaffe et al., 1994; Martel et al., 1999).

The association of these six AGN in Abell 2104 with red cluster galaxies could be because these observations only probe the inner 1 Mpc of the cluster, which is dominated by old, red galaxies. The population of blue, starforming galaxies in clusters is known to be more spatially extended (Butcher & Oemler, 1984) and have higher velocity dispersions (Dressler et al., 1999) than the red, passively evolving galaxies. While the six AGN in Abell 2104 are photometrically and spectroscopically similar to old, red galaxies, their mean redshift is offset by $`1000`$ km s-1 from the cluster members measured by Liang et al. (2000). At least some of the AGN may therefore be falling into the cluster for the first time. The asymmetric appearance of the cluster galaxy distribution in Figure 1 suggests that this cluster is dynamically evolving. The spatial and kinematic distribution of AGN hosts to large cluster radii would help identify whether AGN are predominantly associated with the infalling galaxy population.

The AGN host galaxy population in clusters could provide some interesting constraints on the fueling and lifetimes of AGN. Their association with blue galaxies would suggest that the AGN lifetime is less than the 0.1 Gyr lifetime of this population, consistent with current estimates for the lifetime of nearby AGN in the field (Martini et al., 2002), and that nuclear activity is quenched by the cluster potential. If AGN are instead found in cluster galaxy populations of different ages, this suggests that nuclear activity is also episodic in the cluster environment and galaxies retain a central reservoir of cold gas for several Gyr after they enter the cluster potential. In either scenario, the presence of this large population of obscured AGN in cluster galaxies indicates that their central, supermassive black holes continue to grow in the cluster environment.

## 4 Summary

We used deep Chandra and ground-based images to search for AGN in the cluster Abell 2104. Our follow-up spectroscopy has revealed six X-ray sources that are cluster members and all six fall on the cluster color–magnitude relation. The X-ray luminosities of four of these sources are sufficiently high that they can only be AGN. The remaining two are sufficiently luminous, red, and have hardness ratios that suggest they include or are dominated by an AGN component as well. These six sources correspond to an AGN fraction of $`5`$% of cluster galaxies with $`R<20`$ mag. This is a lower limit to the cluster AGN fraction due to our insensitivity to AGN with higher absorbing columns. Only one of these six sources has the characteristic spectral signatures of AGN; the remaining five exhibit either very weak emission (one) or no evidence for nuclear activity (four). The fraction of optically identifiable AGN in Abell 2104 is therefore $`1`$%, in good agreement with other clusters of galaxies (Dressler & Shectman, 1988; Dressler et al., 1999).

The X-ray selected AGN fraction is a factor of five greater than the fraction selected by optical spectroscopy alone and is comparable to the fraction of blue galaxies. The high fraction of X-ray selected AGN in Abell 2104 suggests the existence of an obscured, or at least optically unremarkable, AGN population in rich clusters of galaxies. Obscured AGN such as these could significantly affect infrared and radio-wavelength measurements of star formation in clusters of galaxies, as well as explain the cosmic variance in the hard X-ray background. Additional observations of AGN in other clusters of galaxies may provide interesting constraints on their fueling, lifetimes, and the growth of their central, supermassive black holes.

We would like to thank Alan Dressler, Chris Mihos, and Gus Oemler for helpful discussions and comments. We also acknowledge the referee for helpful comments that have improved our presentation. The Chandra X-ray Observatory Center is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for NASA under contract NAS8-39073. PM was supported by a Carnegie Starr Fellowship. SCT was supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowship grant HF-01125.01-99A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA under contract NAS5-26555.


text:
# Lindbladian Evolution with Selfadjoint Lindblad Operators as Averaged Random Unitary Evolution

## I Introduction

Since the early years of quantum mechanics Dirac (1958) the principle of quantum superposition has been recognized to play a prominent role in the theory and its applications. The destruction and preservation of these superpositions of quantum states occupy a central place in issues such as the quantum-to-classical transition Zurek (1991); Giulini et al. (1996) and potential technological applications in Quantum Information, Computation and Cryptography Bouwmeester et al. (2000); Lo et al. (1998); Chuang and Nielsen (2000). From a physical standpoint the loss of coherence in quantum systems is rooted on the pervasive action of the environment upon the system. This environmental action has received a careful mathematical treatment (cf. Davies (1976); Alicki and Lendi (1987); Breuer and Petruccione (2002) and multiple references therein) going from a constructive approach based on disregarding the degrees of freedom of the environment due to their lack of control by the experimenter (”tracing-out” methods) to an axiomatic approach based on the initial setting of physically motivated axioms to derive an appropiate evolution (master) equation for the system Lindblad (1976); Gorini et al. (1976).
Most of these master equations (ME’s hereafter) satisfy the Markov approximation (semigroup condition) and can be put into the Lindblad form :

$$\frac{d\rho }{dt}=i[H,\rho (t)]+\frac{1}{2}\underset{j}{}\{[V_j\rho (t),V_j^{}]+[V_j,\rho (t)V_j^{}\}$$
(I.1)
where $`H`$ is the Hamiltonian of the system and $`\{V_j\}`$ are operators (so-called Lindblad operators) containing the effect of the environment upon the system. Indeed in the axiomatic approach the Markov approximation is posed as an initial hypothesis Lindblad (1976), thus rendering highly difficult a generalization to nonMarkovian situations.

In this work we develop a novel attempt to derive ME’s both in the markovian and the nonMarkovian regimes using stochastic methods Oksendal (1998); Karatzas and Shrève (1991) jointly with well-known operator techniques commonly used in quantum mechanics Louisell (1973). The main idea consists of building *random* evolution operators (evolution operators with one or several stochastic parameters in it) which contains the decohering effect of the environment and then taking the stochastic expectaction value with respect to this (uncontrollable) randomness. The paper is organized as follows. In section II we state and prove our main (though still somewhat partial) result, namely that any Lindblad-type ME, either Markovian or nonMarkovian, with selfadjoint Lindblad operators can be understood as an averaged random unitary evolution. In section III we discuss some first mathematical consequences of this result such as a very fast method to solve ME’s provided the unitary solutions are known; we illustrate this by solving the phase-damping ME for the multiphoton resonant Jaynes-Cummings model in the rotating-wave approximation Singh (1982) (section III.1). We then comment in section III.2 two immediate consequences, namely both Markovian and nonMarkovian regimes are attainable under the same mathematical formalism and the Lindbladian structure with selfadjoint Lindblad operators is shown to have an origin independent of the Markov approximation. In section III.3 we show how the flexibility of the mathematical language employed can easily generalize some intrinsic decoherence models present in the literature Milburn (1991); Bonifacio et al. (2000). In section IV we discuss the previous main result under a more physical spirit by proposing a slight generalization of the Jaynes-Cummings model (section IV.1), comparing this proposal with experimental results in optical cavities experiments (section IV.2) and finally (section IV.3) showing how the proposed formalim can account for reported exponential decays of Rabi oscillations in ion traps. We include in section V some important comments regarding a brief comparison with existing models of stochastic evolution in Hilbert space, the possibility of intrinsic decoherence phenomena and future prospects. Conclusions and a short appendix close the paper.

## II Lindblad Evolution as an Averaged Random Unitary Evolution

The main result whose consequences are to be discussed below is the following: *Every Lindblad evolution with selfadjoint Lindblad operators can be understood as an averaged random unitary evolution*. We will analyse this proposition in detail. The objective is to reproduce the Lindblad equation111From the beginning it will be taken into account that $`V_i^{}=V_ii=1,\mathrm{},n`$.

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\rho (t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho (t)]+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}\{[V_i\rho (t),V_i]+[V_i,\rho (t)V_i]\}`$ (II.2)
$`=`$ $`i[H,\rho (t)]{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}{\displaystyle \underset{i=1}{\overset{n}{}}}[V_i,[V_i,\rho (t)]]`$
by adequately modifying chosen parameters in the original evolution operator. For simplicity let us start by considering the case $`n=1`$. We will first study the case where the Hamiltonian $`H`$ and the (selfadjoint) Lindblad operator $`V`$ commute. It is very convenient to introduce the following notation. The commutator between an operator $`G`$ and $`X`$ will be denoted by $`𝒞_G[X][G,X]`$. Thus the von Neumann-Liouville operator will be $`=iC_H`$, where $`H`$ denotes the Hamiltonian ($`\mathrm{}=1`$). Then the Lindblad equation (II.2) with $`n=1`$ can be arrived at by

1. Adding a stochastic term $`_tV`$ to the argument of the evolution operator:

$$U(t)=\mathrm{exp}(itH)U_{st}(t)=\mathrm{exp}(itHi_tV)$$
(II.3)
where $`_t`$ denotes standard real Brownian motion Oksendal (1998).
2. Taking the stochastic average with respect to $`_t`$ in the density operator deduced from $`U_{st}(t)`$:

$$\rho (t)=𝔼[U_{st}(t)\rho (0)U_{st}^{}(t)]$$
(II.4)
where $`𝔼`$ denotes the expectation value with respect to the probability measure of $`_t`$.

The proof of this result is nearly immediate. Taking advantage of the commutativity of $`H`$ and $`V`$ and making use of theorem 3 in Louisell (1973) (cf. appendix; relation (A.58)) we may write for the density operator:

$$\rho (t)=\mathrm{exp}(t)𝔼[\mathrm{exp}(i_t𝒞_V)][\rho (0)]$$
(II.5)
Thus all we have to do is to calculate the expectation value of the random superoperator $`\mathrm{exp}(i_t𝒞_V)`$. Developing the exponential into a power series and recalling Oksendal (1998) $`𝔼[_t^n]=\frac{(2n)!}{2^nn!}t^n`$ if $`n`$ is even and $`𝔼[_t^n]=0`$ otherwise, we arrive at

$`\rho (t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(t)\mathrm{exp}({\displaystyle \frac{t}{2}}𝒞_V^2)[\rho (0)]`$ (II.6)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(t{\displaystyle \frac{t}{2}}𝒞_V^2)[\rho (0)]`$
which produces the desired master equation:

$$\frac{d\rho (t)}{dt}=i[H,\rho (t)]\frac{1}{2}[V,[V,\rho (t)]]$$
(II.7)
When the Hamiltonian $`H`$ and the Lindblad operator $`V`$ do not commute, the previous method is not suitable, since the calculation of the expectation value cannot be performed in the same way. A way to circumvent this problem is to proceed in the same way as before but in the Heisenberg picture. Thus let $`U(t)=\mathrm{exp}(itH)`$ be the original evolution operator in the Schrödinger picture. The corresponding evolution operator in the Heisenberg picture will trivially be $`U_H(t)=I`$. As before we proceed in steps:

1. Add a stochastic term to the argument of the evolution operator:

$`U_H(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(it0)U_{H,st}(t)=`$ (II.8)
$`=`$ $`𝒯\mathrm{exp}(i{\displaystyle _0^t}V_H(s)𝑑_s)`$
where $`𝒯`$ denotes time-ordering and $`V_H(t)`$ is the operator $`V`$ in the Heisenberg representation.
2. Take the stochastic average with respect to $`_t`$ in the corresponding density operator:

$$\rho _H(t)=𝔼[U_{H,st}(t)\rho (0)U_{H,st}^{}]$$
(II.9)
3. Finally to arrive at (II.2) change to the Schrödinger representation.

A comment should be made. The stochastic term added to the original evolution operator in (II.8) is a natural generalization of the one added in (II.3). The Ito integration now appears as a consequence of the time dependence of the operator to be added: $`V_H(t)`$. Note that when $`[H,V]=0`$, $`V_H(t)=V`$ and the stochastic term reduces to $`V_t`$ as before.
Now to perform the previous tasks is a bit more involved. Firstly combining relation (A.58) and the $`𝒯`$operation, the step 1 can be carried over:

$`\rho _H(t)`$ $`=`$ $`𝔼[𝒯e^{i_0^tV_H(s)𝑑_s}\rho (0)\overline{𝒯}e^{i_0^tV_H(s)𝑑_s}]=`$ (II.10)
$`=`$ $`𝒯𝔼[e^{i_0^t𝒞_{V_H(s)}𝑑_s}][\rho (0)]`$
The expectation value (II.10) can be evaluated by resorting to functional techniques van Kampen (1981); Feynman and Hibbs (1965). Recall that the characteristic functional of a stochastic process $`\chi _t`$ is defined as

$$G_\chi [k(t)]=𝔼\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(ik(t)\chi _t𝑑t\right)\right]$$
(II.11)
where $`k(t)`$ is an arbitrary real-valued function. In particular, for white noise $`\chi _t=\xi _t`$ (cf. van Kampen (1981))

$`G_\xi [k(t)]`$ $`=`$ $`𝔼[\mathrm{exp}\left(i{\displaystyle k(s)𝑑_s}\right)]=`$ (II.12)
$`=`$ $`e^{\frac{1}{2}_0^tk^2(s)𝑑s}`$
where $`d_t=\xi _tdt`$, $`𝔼\xi _t=0`$ and $`𝔼[\xi _t\xi _s]=\delta (ts)`$ have been used. From this it is then clear that (II.10) can be written as

$$\rho _H(t)=𝒯e^{\frac{1}{2}_0^t𝒞_{V_H(s)}^2𝑑s}[\rho (0)]$$
(II.13)
Back to the Schrödinger picture, the master equation derived from (II.13) is

$$\frac{d\rho (t)}{dt}=i[H,\rho (t)]\frac{1}{2}[V,[V,\rho (t)]]$$
(II.14)
The generalization to many Lindblad operators is elementary: all we have to do is to use the n-dimensional standard real Brownian motion Oksendal (1998) $`\stackrel{}{}_t=(_t^1,\mathrm{},_t^n)`$. The strategy is the same.

## III Analytical Consequences

The first consequences one can derive from the previous result are of analytical fashion. As an immediate aplication we will show how the Jaynes-Cummings model with phase damping in the rotating-wave approximation can be solved provided we know the solution to the original Jaynes-Cummings model. As a second consequence we will discuss how the previous result can be generalized to nonMarkovian situations, thus providing a common language for both Markovian and nonMarkovian evolutions. Finally it is shown how existing intrinsic decoherence models are naturally generalized using this formalism.

### III.1 Solution of the Resonant Multiphoton Jaynes-Cummings Model with Phase Damping

The Jaynes-Cummings model (JCM hereafter) Jaynes and Cummings (1963); Shore and Knight (1993) shows an undoubtable relevance in the study of quantum systems in different fields such as Quantum Optics, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance or Particle Physics. It is an exactly solvable model which allows us to study specifically quantum properties of Nature such as electromagnetic field quantization or periodic collapses and revivals in atomic population. The JCM describes the evolution of a two-level quantum system (the atom) interacting with a mode of the electromagnetic field under certain approximations (rotating wave approximation, dipole approximation, etc. – cf. Jaynes and Cummings (1963); Shore and Knight (1993) for details). Usually in normal experimental conditions this will be an idealization and the environment should be taken into account, the effect of which can be very appropiately treated introducing a phase-damping term Louisell (1973). Thus the master equation for this system will read

$$\frac{d\rho (t)}{dt}=i[H,\rho (t)]\frac{\gamma }{2}[H,[H,\rho (t)]]$$
(III.15)
where $`H`$ is the Hamiltonian of the system and $`\gamma `$ is a damping constant. Here we will show how (III.15) can be very easily solved when $`H`$ is the resonant multiphoton JC Hamiltonian (cf. Kuang et al. (1997) for an alternative approach), i.e. when

$$H=\omega a^{}a+\omega _0S_z+\lambda (S_{}a^m+S_+a^m)$$
(III.16)
where $`\omega `$ denotes the frequency of the field mode, $`\omega _0`$ is the atomic transition frequency, $`\lambda `$ is the atom-field coupling constant, $`a^{}`$ and $`a`$ are the mode creation and annihilation operators respectively, $`S_z`$ is the atomic-inversion operator and $`S_\pm `$ are the atomic “raising” and “lowering” operators. An exact resonance is assumed, thus $`\omega _0=m\omega `$.
We will focus in two quantities of relevant physical meaning, namely the atomic inversion $`W(t)=\text{Tr}[\rho (t)S_z]`$ and the photon number distribution at time $`t`$: $`P_n(t)=n|Tr_A\rho (t)|n`$. To compare with methods found in the literature Moya-Cessa et al. (1993); Kuang et al. (1997) we will restrict to the case in which initially the atom is in its excited state $`|+`$ and the electromagnetic field is in a coherent state $`|\alpha =_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}Q_n|n`$, with $`Q_n\mathrm{exp}(|\alpha |^2/2)\frac{\alpha ^n}{\sqrt{n!}}`$. The unitary evolution ($`\gamma =0`$) provides the following expressions for these quantities:

$`W(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}|Q_n|^2\mathrm{cos}\left[2\lambda t\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]`$ (III.17a)
$`P_n(t)`$ $`=`$ $`|Q_n|^2\mathrm{cos}^2\left[\lambda t\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]+`$ (III.17b)
$`+`$ $`|Q_{nm}|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\lambda t\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]`$
The objective is to calculate these same quantities when the phase damping term is present in (III.15), i.e. when $`\gamma 0`$. We will make use of the result proved in the previous section and note that the equation (III.15) can be obtained by adding a stochastic term to the original evolution operator and then performing the stochastic average. In our case, $`V=\gamma ^{1/2}H`$, which obviously commutes with the Hamiltonian, thus we are in the first case. The original evolution operator is promoted to

$`U(t)=\mathrm{exp}(itH)`$ $``$ $`U_{st}(t)=\mathrm{exp}(itHi\gamma ^{1/2}_tH)`$ (III.18)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(i(t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t)H)`$
Equivalently we may think that it is $`t`$ which is promoted $`tt+\gamma ^{1/2}_t`$. Thus to arrive at the desired “phase-damped” expressions $`W^{pd}(t)`$ and $`P_n^{pd}(t)`$ all we have to do is to add a stochastic term to the time variable $`t`$ and then perform the average:

$`W^{pd}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`𝔼\left[{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}|Q_n|^2\mathrm{cos}\left[2\lambda (t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]\right]`$
$`P_n^{pd}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`𝔼[|Q_n|^2\mathrm{cos}^2\left[\lambda (t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]+`$
$`+`$ $`|Q_{nm}|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\left[\lambda (t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]]`$
Using the linearity property of the expectation value and recalling the moments of the standard real brownian motion (cf. above and Oksendal (1998)), the previous calculations can be carried over elementarily using (see appendix A):

$`𝔼\mathrm{cos}\left[2\lambda (t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t)\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]`$ $`=`$ $`e^{2\gamma \lambda ^2t\frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}\times `$
$`\times `$ $`\mathrm{cos}\left[2\lambda t\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]`$
Hence

$`W^{pd}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}}|Q_n|^2e^{2\gamma \lambda ^2t\frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}\mathrm{cos}\left[2\lambda t\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]`$
$`P_n^{pd}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|Q_n|^2\left\{1+e^{2\gamma \lambda ^2t\frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}\right\}\mathrm{cos}\left[2\lambda t\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]+`$
$`+`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}|Q_{nm}|^2\left\{1e^{2\gamma \lambda ^2t\frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}\right\}\mathrm{cos}\left[2\lambda t\sqrt{{\displaystyle \frac{(n+m)!}{n!}}}\right]`$
which exactly coincides with equations (41) and (43) in Kuang et al. (1997) and eqs. (3.26) and (3.27) in Moya-Cessa et al. (1993) for $`m=1`$. We encourage the reader to compare this method with those used in Kuang et al. (1997); Moya-Cessa et al. (1993).
Obviously this formalism can also be used to solve the equation (III.15) with any arbitrary Hamiltonian provided we already know the solution when $`\gamma =0`$.

### III.2 NonMarkovian Evolution

A second consequence of the formalism depicted above is its immediate generalization to nonMarkovian situations. The result in section II can be readily generalized to the following: *Any Lindbladian master equation, whether Markovian or nonMarkovian, but with selfadjoint Lindblad operators can be obtained as the stochastic average of a random unitary evolution*. The generalization stems out from the single fact that whereas in the Markovian regime we necessarily have to add a stochastic term of the form $`_tV=V_0^t𝑑_t`$, in the nonMarkovian case this restriction drops out and then we may add a term like $`V_0^tv(s)𝑑_s`$, where $`v(s)`$ is an arbitrary real-valued function which encodes e.g. the time response of the environment to the system evolution 222It can be argued that more generality is gained if instead of being a real-valued function, $`v(t)`$ is a stochastic process. In this case, since we are interested in physical properties which are obtained after averaging, this does not suppose any actual gain.. Under these circumstances, the previous procedure (for simplicity’s sake we will only care about the commuting case; the noncommuting case is similar) drives us to

$$\rho (t)=\mathrm{exp}(t)𝔼[\mathrm{exp}\left(i𝒞_V_0^tv(s)𝑑_s\right)][\rho (0)]$$
(III.22)
Now developing the exponential again into a power series, calculating the expectation value of each term with some elementary Ito calculus and resumming the series, one arrives at

$$\frac{d\rho (t)}{dt}=i[H,\rho (t)]\frac{\gamma (t)}{2}[V,[V,\rho (t)]]$$
(III.23)
where $`\gamma (t)=_0^tv^2(s)𝑑s`$. This is clearly a Lindbladian nonMarkovian master equation. The extension to more than one Lindblad operator is again trivial. This result casts some light into the origin of the Lindbladian structure of master equations with selfadjoint Lindblad operators, independently of their Markovian or nonMarkovian character, something beyond reach of the original axiomatic approach of Lindblad (1976); Gorini et al. (1976).
In this sense the result proven here generalizes previous derivation of Lindblad evolution using stochastic calculus Adler (2000); Parthasarathy (1992) by dropping out the semigroup condition. Note that this generalization allows us to conclude that since $`\gamma (t)=_0^tv^2(s)𝑑s`$ the decoherence process is irreversible, i.e. no coherence can be recovered within the domain of validity of the phase-damping ME as an evolution equation for the quantum system.
The time dependence of the decoherence factor also suggests a classification of different kinds of environments depending on the rate at which the environment decoheres the system (cf. Salgado and Sánchez-Gómez (2002a)). It remains open what the physical conditions should be to have the different decoherence factors.

### III.3 Models of intrinsic decoherence

A third advantage appears as a natural generalization of intrinsic decoherence models already present in the literature Milburn (1991); Bonifacio et al. (2000). These two models propose an intrinsic mechanism of decoherence based on the random nature of time evolution (we will not enter into the discussion of the physical justification of this hypothesis –see original references for discussion, we will only show how they can be generalized), which basically drives us to the evolution equation (III.15). The starting hypotheses (apart from the random nature of time evolution and the usual representation of a quantum system by a density operator) are a specific probability distribution Milburn (1991) or a semigroup condition (Markovianity) Bonifacio et al. (2000) for the time evolution. As a result we obtain a *nondissipative Markovian* master equation in both cases.
The formalism presented here dispenses with any of these specific conditions, something which allows us to obtain more general master equations, i.e. both Markovian or nonMarkovian and dissipative or nondissipative.
The result comes from the combination of Ito calculus and the spectral representation theorem for unitary operators Salgado and Sánchez-Gómez (2002b). Let $`U(t)`$ be an unitary evolution operator. By means of the spectral decomposition theorem Kreyszig (1978) it can be written as

$$U(t)=_\pi ^\pi e^{i\theta t}𝑑E_\theta $$
(III.24)
where $`E_\theta `$ denotes the spectral measure of the evolution operator. Now we perform the stochastic promotion as before by substituting

$$\theta t\chi _t(\theta )$$
(III.25)
where $`\chi _t(\theta )`$ is real stochastic process. Then (see Salgado and Sánchez-Gómez (2002b) for details)

1. The Markovian nondissipative master equation appearing in Milburn (1991) and Bonifacio et al. (2000) is obtained if $`\chi _t(\theta )=\theta t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t`$. But note that now the Lindblad operators are not fixed by any initial assumption. If e.g. $`\chi _t(\theta )=\theta t+_0^t\sigma (s;\theta )𝑑_s(\theta )`$ with correlation function $`d_t(\theta )d_t(\theta ^{})=e^{\tau ^2(\theta \theta ^{})^2}dt`$ we arrive at a Lindblad equation

$`{\displaystyle \frac{d\rho (t)}{dt}}`$ $`=`$ $`i[H,\rho (t)]`$
$``$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{\gamma }{2}}\left(H^2\rho (t)+\rho (t)H^22He^{\tau ^2𝒞_H^2}[\rho (t)]H\right)`$
which is clearly different from the phase-damping master equation (III.15). Thus even restricting ourselves to the same range of assumptions (Markovianity and nondissipation) we can obtain more master equations.
2. A nonMarkovian nondissipative master equation like e.g.

$$\frac{d\rho (t)}{dt}=i[H,\rho (t)]\frac{\lambda (t)}{2}[H,[H,\rho (t)]]$$
(III.27)
is obtained if $`\chi _t(\theta )=\theta t+_0^t\sigma (s)𝑑_s`$ and $`\lambda (t)_0^t\sigma ^2(s)𝑑s`$.
3. More general equations can be readily obtained by appropiately combining the correlation properties of $`_t(\theta )`$ and the time dependency of $`\sigma (t;\theta )`$.

This allows these models to be used to explain a wider range of phenomena than that originally considered.

## IV Rabi Oscillations Decay in Cavity QED and Ion Traps Experiments

In previous sections we have developed a method to adequately modify the original evolution operator of a quantum system to finally arrive at a Lindbladian master equation. Now we find legitimate to proceed the other way around, i.e. what physical predictions are derived from the assumption that a parameter in the evolution operator of a quantum system is random? To be concrete we will focus upon two different physical systems, namely a Rydberg atom in an optical cavity and a linear rf (Paul) ion trap. We will confront the previous hypothesis with experimental results.

### IV.1 The Jaynes-Cummings Model Revisited

The JCM model describes the interaction between an atom and the electromagnetic field under very special conditions Jaynes and Cummings (1963); Shore and Knight (1993). Different generalizations have been proposed to take the model closer to experimental reality keeping its solvability. Among these one can find the inclusion of dissipation (often modelled by coupling the field oscillator to a reservoir of external modes) and/or damping (as a consequence of spontaneous emission), multi-atom, multi-level atom, generalized-interaction and multiple-mode generalizations (see Shore and Knight (1993) for references).
Here we want to introduce a novel proposal, which states that JCM predictions can be rendered more realistic by noticing that the coupling constant $`\lambda `$ between the atom and the field mode should have a stochastic part which contains part of the effects of the approximations assumed in constructing the original model. Since these effects are not under control, to make physical predictions we must average on the introduced random parameters. To illustrate the idea let us consider the original JCM with Hamiltonian $`H=\omega a^{}a+\omega _0S_z+\lambda (S_{}a^{}+S_+a)`$, where $`\omega `$ denotes the frequency of the field mode, $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$ their corresponding creation and destruction operators, $`\omega _0`$ the frequency difference between the two energy atomic levels, $`S_z`$ the atomic population operator, $`\lambda `$ the atom-field coupling constant and $`S_\pm `$ the energy raising/lowering atomic operators. We claim that the evolution stemming out from $`H`$ should be modified by inserting a random part $`\chi _t`$, where $`\chi _t`$ is a real stochastic process which contains the departure from the original ideal situation. The connection with the previous formalism is established by noticing that the evolution operator (in interaction picture) must then be:

$`U_I(t)`$ $`=`$ $`𝒯\mathrm{exp}\left[i{\displaystyle _0^t}(\lambda +\chi _s)H_I^{int}(s)𝑑s\right]=`$ (IV.28)
$`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\left[i(\lambda t+{\displaystyle _0^t}\chi _s𝑑s)H^{int}\right]`$
where $`H^{int}=(S_{}a^{}+S_+a)`$ is the interaction Hamiltonian and $`H_I^{int}(t)=U_0^{}(t)H^{int}U_0(t)`$ is the interaction Hamiltonian in interaction picture (for simplicity’s shake exact resonance has been assumed $`\omega =\omega _0`$). Now the expression $`\overline{\lambda }_t\lambda t+_0^t\chi _s𝑑s`$ is a real stochastic process itself which can always be expressed in the form Oksendal (1998)

$$\overline{\lambda }_t=𝔼[\overline{\lambda }_t]+_0^tv_s𝑑_s$$
(IV.29)
where $`v_t`$ is a real stochastic process uniquely determined by $`\overline{\lambda }_t`$. Then the density operator in interaction picture will then be given by

$$\rho _I(t)=𝔼\left[\mathrm{exp}\left(i_0^t\left(𝔼[\overline{\lambda }_s]+v_sd_s\right)𝒞_{H_I^{int}(s)}\right)ds\right][\rho (0)]$$
(IV.30)
Instead of giving the general form of the expectation value in (IV.30) (which will be difficult to obtain in full generality), we will propose some physical choices based on $`\chi _t`$. If $`\chi _t=\gamma ^{1/2}\xi _t`$, i.e. the original deterministic evolution is randomly perturbed by a white noise coming from a stochastic perturbation of the coupling constant, then $`\overline{\lambda }_t=\lambda t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t`$ and (IV.30) reduces to

$`\rho _I(t)`$ $`=`$ $`\mathrm{exp}(i\lambda t𝒞_{H_I})𝔼[\mathrm{exp}(i\gamma ^{1/2}_t𝒞_{H_I})[\rho (0)]`$ (IV.31)
$`=`$ $`𝔼[\mathrm{exp}\left(i\left(\lambda t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t\right)𝒞_{H_I}\right)][\rho (0)]`$
which yields a density operator in Schrödinger picture given by

$$\rho (t)=𝔼[\mathrm{exp}\left(it𝒞_{H_0}i\left(\lambda t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t\right)𝒞_{H_I}\right)][\rho (0)]$$
(IV.32)
This relationship means that to obtain the physical predictions of this proposal, all one has to do is to make the sustitution $`\lambda t\lambda t+\gamma ^{1/2}_t`$ in the original expressions and calculate the expectation value.
Note that this proposal allows us to embrace nonMarkovian (though Lindbladian) situations with little extra effort, e.g. by claiming that the random perturbation is time-dependent $`\chi _t=\gamma ^{1/2}(t)\xi _t`$. More general options are also possible. The particular choice for $`\chi _t`$ relies upon the specific system under study. Notice also that the generalization proposed here is compatible with the ones quoted above, i.e. one may combine both type of generalizations.

### IV.2 Decay in an Optical Cavity

Let us consider the situation depicted in Brune et al. (1996), which appears as the first direct (in time domain) experimental evidence of field quantization. The system consists of a Rydberg atom in a high-Q optical cavity with the atom initially excited and the electromagnetic field in a coherent state $`|\alpha `$. This system is accurately described using the JCM, thus Rabi oscillations are expected and concordantly experimentally measured. The theoretical prediction for the probability $`P_{eg}(t)`$ to find the atom at a time $`t`$ in its ground state is $`P_{eg}(t)=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}|Q_n|^2\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\lambda t\sqrt{n+1}\right)`$. However an exponential damping in these oscillations are detected (see Brune et al. (1996) for details). The stochastic JCM accounts for this damping (see fig. 1) assuming $`\chi _t=\gamma ^{1/2}\xi _t`$ which produces

$$P_{eg}^{sJCM}(t)=\frac{1}{2}\left(1\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}|Q_n|^2e^{2(n+1)\gamma \lambda t}\mathrm{cos}\left(2\lambda t\sqrt{n+1}\right)\right)$$
(IV.33)
The physical interpretation under this assumption is rather clear: the ideal coupling assumed in the original JCM does not hold any longer and departures from this ideality should be considered. Darks counts and decoherence caused by collisions with background gas have been considered as candidates to explain the damping behaviour333Notice that in the experimental conditions achieved, spontaneous emission cannot play any role to this extent. See Brune et al. (1996). and even more radical proposals appear in the literature Bonifacio et al. (2000). Except for the latter which reveals an original intrinsic process, all of them resort to external agents. Here note that we do not need to do so, since the departure from ideal atom-field mode coupling can be justified within the domain of the JCM assumptions themselves, i.e. the assumption of coupling between a unique field mode and two levels of the atom can be relaxed by adding in a natural way a random background in this coupling.

This decay is also present in the case of arbitrary initial conditions. If $`P_{eg}(t)=_{n=0}^{\mathrm{}}P_n\mathrm{sin}^2\left(\lambda t\sqrt{n+1}\right)`$ is the orthodox prediction, then the previous recipe drives us to

$$P_{eg}^{sJCM}(t)=\frac{1}{2}\left(1\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}P_ne^{2(n+1)\gamma \lambda t}\mathrm{cos}\left(2\lambda t\sqrt{n+1}\right)\right)$$
(IV.34)
where $`P_n`$ depends on the actual initial conditions of both the atom and field mode. Note that not only can any actual exponential decay (with arbitrary time dependency) be obtained with the substitution $`\lambda t\lambda t+_0^t\gamma ^{1/2}(s)𝑑_s`$, but also possible changes in the argument of the cosine function could be accounted for by making $`\lambda t\omega (t)+_0^t\gamma ^{1/2}(s)𝑑_s`$. See appendix A for details.
In this way we have obtained a decohering system (oscillations coming from quantum superpositions are progressively supressed) without necessarily resorting to the action of the environment and keeping quantum principles untouched (see discussion in section V later on). This opens new possibilities to discuss possible sources of decoherence.

### IV.3 Decay in an Ion Trap

The previous experimental supression of quantum coherence has also been detected in a linear Paul ion trap Meekhof et al. (1996a); Wineland et al. (1998). The physical situation is formally similar to that of the Rydberg atom coupled to a field mode: the laser field is operated upon the trap in such a way that it can be considered that only two internal energy levels of the ions are coupled to the center-of-mass (COM) mode of the set of ions (see Wineland et al. (1998)). In the dipole and rotating-wave approximations, the interaction Hamiltonian (in interaction picture) is

$$H_I^{int}(t)=\mathrm{\Omega }S_+\mathrm{exp}\left(i\left[\eta (ae^{i\omega _zt}+a^{}e^{i\omega _zt})\delta t\right]\right)+\text{h.c.}$$
(IV.35)
where $`\eta kz_0`$ is the Lamb-Dicke parameter ($`k=2\pi /\lambda _{laser}`$ and $`z_0(0|z|0^{1/2}`$), $`S_\pm `$ denote the raising/lowering operators for the internal levels, $`a`$ and $`a^{}`$ denote the destruction and creation operators for the COM mode, $`\omega _z`$ denotes the frequency of the harmonic trap for the COM, $`\delta =\omega \omega _0`$ with $`\omega `$ the frequency of the laser mode and $`\omega _0`$ denotes the difference between the two internal energy levels of the ions.
The statevector can then be written as

$$|\mathrm{\Psi }(t)=\underset{m_z=\pm }{}\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}C_{m_z,n}(t)|m_z|n$$
(IV.36)
where $`|m_z`$ and $`|n`$ denote the (time-independent) internal and motional eigenstates. In the conditions of interest, i.e. in resonant transitions ($`\delta =\omega _z(n^{}n)`$ with $`n,n^{}`$ integers), the coefficients $`C_{m_z,n}(t)`$ satisfy the equations Wineland et al. (1998)

$`\dot{C}_{+,n^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`i^{1+|nn^{}|}\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}C_{,n}`$ (IV.37)
$`\dot{C}_{,n^{}}`$ $`=`$ $`i^{1|nn^{}|}\mathrm{\Omega }_{n^{},n}C_{+,n^{}}`$ (IV.38)
where $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}`$ is given by $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n^{}}\mathrm{\Omega }|n^{}|e^{ikz}|n|`$ ($`k=2\pi /\lambda _{\text{laser}}`$ and $`z=z_0(a+a^{})`$ is the operator for the COM motion). From these one can predict the well-known Rabi oscillations of the system. For concreteness’ shake let us focus upon the first blue sideband case, i.e. when $`n^{}=n+1`$. If the trap is prepared in the initial state $`|\mathrm{\Psi }(0)=||n|,n`$, then the probability of finding a single ion in the $`|`$ state at time $`t`$ is $`P_{}(t)=\mathrm{cos}^2(\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n+1}t)`$. However experimentally an exponential decay is obtained. As before, one can argue that ideality should be restricted and both a substitution $`\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n+1}t\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n+1}t+_0^t\gamma ^{1/2}(s)𝑑_s`$ and the corresponding averaging should be performed on $`P_{}(t)`$. This would drives us to the relation

$$P_{}^{rand}(t)=\frac{1}{2}\left(1+e^{2\lambda (t)}\mathrm{cos}(2\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n+1}t)\right)$$
(IV.39)
where $`\lambda (t)_0^t\gamma (s)𝑑s`$. This way the exponential decay would have been obtained. Physically this recipe can be justified by taking into account intensity fluctuations in the laser field (see Schneider and Milburn (1997) –notice that some generality is gained with respect to this work).
However experimental data for the COM initially in an arbitrary state and the ion in the ground state $`|`$ are better fit by

$$P_{}^{exp}(t)=\frac{1}{2}\left[1+\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}P_ne^{\gamma _nt}\mathrm{cos}(2\mathrm{\Omega }_{n,n+1}t)\right]$$
(IV.40)
where $`P_n`$ is an $`n`$-dependent quantity which relies upon the initial conditions of the ion’s motion and $`\gamma _n=\gamma _0(n+1)^{0.7}`$ is a phenomenologically decoherence rate Meekhof et al. (1996a). The peculiar exponent $`0.7`$ in $`\gamma _n`$ renders the previous physical explanation insufficient. More involved schemes to account for this exponent can already be found in the literature Murao and Knight (1998); Bonifacio et al. (2000). Here we propose a new one based on the previously introduced random evolution schemes.
The main problem attains the peculiar $`n`$-dependency of the argument of the exponential decaying function. In the mathematical realm the necessary flexibility comes from a combination of stochastic calculus and the spectral theorem for the evolution operator Salgado and Sánchez-Gómez (2002b) and in the physical one from realizing that not all energy levels of the COM mode can be equally affected by a stochastic perturbation. This idea, in a different context in which the trap is coupled to a boson reservoir to account for the detected decoherence, has already been paid attention Murao and Knight (1998).
Let’s start by considering the spectral decomposition Kreyszig (1978) of the evolution operator generated by the Hamiltonian (IV.35) when the laser is tuned to the first blue sideband, i.e. when the Hamiltonian is given by

$$H_I^{int}=\eta \mathrm{\Omega }[S_+a^{}+S_{}a]$$
(IV.41)
Then the evolution operator will be decomposed as follows:

$$U_I^{int}(t)=\underset{\begin{array}{c}n=0\\ m_z=\pm \end{array}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{ie_n^{m_z}t}P_n^{m_z}$$
(IV.42)
where $`e_n^\pm \pm \eta \mathrm{\Omega }\sqrt{n}`$, $`|e_n^\pm 1/\sqrt{2}\left(|,n1\pm |+,n\right)`$ ($`n1`$) and $`|e_0^+=|+,0`$ denote the eigenvalues and eigenstates of (IV.41) respectively and $`P_n^{m_z}=|e_n^{m_z}e_n^{m_z}|`$ is the projector-valued measure associated to (IV.41). The stochastic promotion is performed by substituting $`e_n^{m_z}te_n^{m_z}t+_0^tv_n^{m_z}(s)𝑑_n^{m_z}(s)`$ in (IV.42) and calculating $`\rho _{int}(t)=𝔼\left[U_{I,rand}^{int}(t)\rho (0)(U_{I,rand}^{int}(t))^{}\right]`$. Here note that the different energy levels are perturbed in a distinct fashion determined both by the deterministic functions $`v_n^{m_z}(t)`$ and the standard real Brownian motions $`_n^{m_z}(t)`$. The latter show correlation properties expressed by the functions $`g_{n,m}^{m_z,m_z^{^{}}}(t)`$:

$$d_n^{m_z}(t)d_m^{m_z^{^{}}}(t)=g_{n,m}^{m_z,m_z^{^{}}}(t)dt$$
(IV.43)
The density operator in interaction picture will then be given by

$$\rho _{int}(t)=\underset{\begin{array}{c}n,m=0\\ m_z,m_z^{^{}}=\pm \end{array}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{i(e_n^{m_z}e_m^{m_z^{^{}}})t}𝔼\left[e^{i\left(_0^tv_n^{m_z}(s)𝑑_n^{m_z}(s)_0^tv_m^{m_z^{^{}}}(s)𝑑_m^{m_z^{^{}}}(s)\right)}\right]P_n^{m_z}\rho (0)P_m^{m_z^{^{}}}$$
(IV.44)
The expectation value in (IV.44) can be calculated with the same techniques as before (cf. also appendix A) and drives us to:

$$\rho _{int}(t)=\underset{\begin{array}{c}n,m=0\\ m_z,m_z^{^{}}=\pm \end{array}}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}e^{i(e_n^{m_z}e_m^{m_z^{^{}}})t\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n,m}^{m_z,m_z^{^{}}}(t)}{2}}P_n^{m_z}\rho (0)P_m^{m_z^{^{}}}$$
(IV.45)
where $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n,m}^{m_z,m_z^{^{}}}(t)=_0^t\lambda _{n,m}^{m_z,m_z^{^{}}}(s)𝑑s`$ with $`\lambda _{n,m}^{m_z,m_z^{^{}}}(t)=(v_n^{m_z}(t))^2g_{n,n}^{m_z,m_z}(t)+(v_m^{m_z^{^{}}}(t))^2g_{m,m}^{m_z^{^{}},m_z^{^{}}}(t)2v_n^{m_z}(t)v_m^{m_z^{^{}}}(t)g_{n,m}^{m_z,m_z^{^{}}}(t)`$.

The expression (IV.45) already contains the necessary ingredients to arrive at the detected behaviour, since if the ion trap is initially set in a Fock state for the COM mode and the ground state for the internal levels, i.e. $`\rho (0)=|,n,n|`$, then the probability $`P_{}^{rand}(t)`$ in this scheme is

$`P_{}^{rand}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{4}}[\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n+1,n+1}^{+,+}(t)}{2}}\}+\mathrm{exp}\{{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n+1,n+1}^,(t)}{2}}\}`$
$`+`$ $`\mathrm{exp}\{i(e_{n+1}^+e_{n+1}^{})t{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n+1,n+1}^{+,}(t)}{2}}\}+\mathrm{exp}\{i(e_{n+1}^{}e_{n+1}^+)t{\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n+1,n+1}^{,+}(t)}{2}}\}]`$
Before making physical assumptions let us notice that since the Brownian motions are standard, $`g_{n,n}^{(\pm ,\pm )}(t)=1`$ for all $`n`$ (the brackets mean that both superscripts must be equal) and thus $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n,n}^{(\pm ,\pm )}(t)=0`$ for all $`n`$. Now we pose the most important physical hypothesis, namely the stochastic perturbation depends exclusively upon the energy level of the COM mode (at least up to the order of detection we are nowadays capable). As a first consequence we then can claim that $`g_{n,n}^{+,}(t)=g_{n,n}^{,+}(t)`$ for all $`n`$, and then $`\lambda _{n,n}^{(\pm ,\pm )}(t)=0`$ and $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n,n}^{(\pm ,\pm )}(t)=0`$ and also $`\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n,n}^{+,}(t)=\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n,n}^{,+}(t)`$, hence (IV.3) reduces to

$`P_{}^{rand}(t)`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[1+e^{\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n+1,n+1}^{+,}(t)}{2}}\mathrm{cos}((e_{n+1}^+e_{n+1}^{})t)\right]=`$ (IV.47)
$`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\left[1+e^{\frac{\mathrm{\Lambda }_{n+1,n+1}^{+,}(t)}{2}}\mathrm{cos}(2\eta \mathrm{\Omega }t\sqrt{n+1})\right]`$
Second since for fixed $`n`$ the internal levels are equally affected, we can also write $`g_{n,n}^{+,}(t)=g_{n,n}^{+,+}(t)`$ for each $`n`$. Finally instead of discussing upon absolute energy values, it is physically more reasonable to talk about energy differences and we propose that the stochastic perturbations be introduced in such a way as to have

$$e_n^+e_n^{}e_n^+e_n^{}+\mathrm{\Gamma }^{1/2}n^d\xi _t$$
(IV.48)
where $`d`$ is an arbitrary exponent, $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ a constant and where we have assumed for simplicity that the random perturbation is a white noise. Note however that it is possible to use more general expressions. Notice the different behaviour of the added term for each distinct subspace of constant COM energy in agreement with the physical hypothesis assumed above. Under these hypotheses $`v_n^+(t)v_n^{}(t)=\mathrm{\Gamma }^{1/2}n^d`$ and after elementary calculations (IV.3) finally reduces to

$$P_{}^{rand}(t)=\frac{1}{2}\left(1+e^{\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }t}{2}(n+1)^{2d}}\mathrm{cos}\left(2\eta \mathrm{\Omega }t\sqrt{n+1}\right)\right)$$
(IV.49)
This expression shows a clear resemblance to $`P_{}^{exp}(t)`$ written above. We believe that both $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ and $`d`$ depends sensitively upon the particular physical system under study.
For completeness we also include the expression for $`P_{}^{rand}(t)`$ when the COM mode has an initial state with diagonal density-matrix elements $`P_n`$:

$$P_{}^{rand}(t)=\frac{1}{2}\left(1+\underset{n=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}P_ne^{\frac{\mathrm{\Gamma }t}{2}(n+1)^{2d}}\mathrm{cos}\left(2\eta \mathrm{\Omega }t\sqrt{n+1}\right)\right)$$
(IV.50)
This expression has the same structure as the experimental ones shown in Meekhof et al. (1996a). The whole scheme can obviously be applied to the carrier, first red sideband and successive excitation too. We include in figs. 2, 3 and 4 the predictions in the orthodox and the above formalism in the cases when the COM mode is in a Fock state, thermal state and coherent state and the internal state is the ground state.

## V Discussion

The use of stochastic methods in Hilbert space is of course not new (cf. e.g. Diósi (1986); Diósi and Lukács (1994)). The idea of representing open quantum systems by means of stochastic processes already appeared in the literature some years ago Diósi (1985) and it has been widely used in Quantum Optics Plenio and Knight (1998) and in the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics Pearle (2000). Here we pursue the line initiated in Diósi (1986) stepping forward by randomizing not just the (thus stochastic) state vector of the open quantum system, but its evolution operator. We find at least three reasons to do that. Firstly when one write a random evolution equation for the state vector (thus an Ito stochastic differential equation) an extra term must be included, namely the Ito correction. Consider for example the following evolution

$$d|\psi _t=iH|\psi _tdtiA|\psi _td_t\frac{1}{2}A^2|\psi _tdt$$
(V.51)
where the operator $`A`$ commutes with the hamiltonian $`H`$ (just for simplicity). From a physical point of view we find little intuitive the origin of the Ito correction term, which however appears in a natural way by applying Ito’s formula to the evolution operator with the stochastic modification $`U_{st}(t)=e^{iHtiA_t}`$. Secondly the use of random evolution operators emphasizes the idea that it is the evolution which is random and there is nothing random about the Hamiltonian (and thus the energy levels of the system), something which may misleadingly be understood from equation (V.51). Finally the use of operators rather than just state vectors opens the possibility of trying to employ group-representation techniques Ballentine (1990) and thus of rooting the random nature of the evolution upon possible stochastic symmetries.
This proposal is not intended to solve the so-called *macroobjectification* problem (better known as the measurement problem) by means of a random dynamical reduction process. Indeed it can be readily shown that the state driven by a random evolution operator $`U_{st}(t)=e^{iHtiV_t}`$ is never reduced in clear contrast to these models (see Adler et al. (2001)). For the case of the previous random evolution operator this can be readily proven. Let $`U_{st}(t)=e^{iHtiA_t}`$ be the random evolution operator of a quantum system ($`[A,H]=0`$ for simplicity). Then the Ito differential equation for the state vector is (V.51). Now to check whether this evolution produces dynamical state-reduction or not it is sufficient to study the stochastic process (cf. Adler et al. (2001))

$$\stackrel{~}{V}_t\frac{\psi _t|(AA_t)^2|\psi _t}{\psi _t|\psi _t}$$
(V.52)
where $`A_t\frac{\psi _t|A|\psi _t}{\psi _t|\psi _t}`$. Since $`d\psi _t|\psi _t=0`$ and $`|\psi _0|\psi _0|^2=1`$, the random evolution is unitary almost surely and then

$$d\stackrel{~}{V}_t=0\stackrel{~}{V}_t=\stackrel{~}{V}_0$$
(V.53)
Thus there is no actual state-vector reduction process around the eigenvectors of $`A`$. This of course differs radically for the behaviour of $`|\psi _t`$ in stochastic state vector reduction models, where the evolution equation is typically written as Adler et al. (2001); Pearle (2000)

$$d|\psi _t=iH|\psi _tdt\frac{1}{2}(AA_t)^2|\psi _t+(AA_t)|\psi _td_t$$
(V.54)
The nonlinear terms appear as a consequence of normalization conditions Salgado and Sánchez-Gómez (2002c) and play no significant role in the reduction process. Note the singular difference between eqs. (V.51) and (V.54): despite the fact that both of them produce the same master equation (already noted in Diósi and Wiseman (2001)), only the second one ensures a reduction process taking place and this is because of the $`i`$ factor appearing with the Wiener differential $`d_t`$. It is an open question whether there exists a physical process or not introducing this phase factor in the evolution equation for $`|\psi _t`$.
The great utility of stochastic processes to account for the decoherence suffered by a quantum system is its versatility to also account for possible intrinsic decohering effects. By this we mean not a fundamental modification of quantum principles, as e.g. in Milburn (1991); Bonifacio et al. (2000); Pearle (2000) but just the idea that when a quantum system is described (e.g. an atom interacting with the electromagnetic field) some approximations must necessarily be made to be able to analytically handle with it and we claim that some of these approximations may hidingly induce decohering effects upon the approximated model. In this sense this decoherence can be called *intrinsic* since no environmental effect is taken into account. Undoubtedly this does not deny in any way the possibility of having a system decohered by its environment. Notice the special relevance of such a hypothetical effect in quantum systems designed to implement quantum-computational and quantum-information-processing tasks, since they usually possess certain degree of complexity which forces us to seek for adequate approximations to describe them. A possible relationship of this intrinsic decoherence with scalability of quantum-informational and quantum computational systems would also have important consequences to find robust mechanisms to process information in a quantum way.
Besides possible new physical interpretations supporting the use of stochastic processes in Quantum Mechanics, its utility to solve certain ME as shown above justifies the search to extend the main result reported here. Currently the way to drop the condition of selfadjointness of Lindblad operators is under study.
Finally a mathematical remark should be made regarding the proof of the previous result. One may wonder why the same procedure as in the commuting case, i.e. adding a stochastic term $`U(t)e^{iHtV_0^t\sigma (s)𝑑_s}`$, is not used in the noncommuting case. The reason jointly rests upon the Ito’s formula and the lack of some derivatives in the case of noncommuting operators. Ito’s formula Oksendal (1998) basically states 444Differentiablity conditions are supposed being enough satisfied as to guarantee the existence of the performed operations. See Oksendal (1998); Karatzas and Shrève (1991) for details. that if the real stochastic process $`X_t`$ satisfies the Ito SDE $`dX_t=a(t,X_t)dt+b(t,X_t)d_t`$, then the real stochastic process defined as $`Y_t=\psi (t,X_t)`$ satisfies the Ito SDE given by

$$d\psi (t,X_t)=\left(a(t,X_t)_t\psi (t,X_t)+\frac{1}{2}b^2(t,X_t)_{xx}\psi (t,X_t)\right)dt+b(t,X_t)_x\psi (t,X_t)d_t$$
(V.55)
This means that both the first and second partial derivatives of $`\psi (t,x)`$ must exist to be able to apply this formula. If the stochastic process is operator-valued as e.g. $`e^{itHiX_tV}`$ with $`[H,V]0`$, then Ito’s formula cannot be directly applied since the partial derivates of $`e^{itHixV}`$ cannot be found. This difficulty has been circumvented by changing to the Heisenberg picture before introducing the stochastic modifications. However it would be desirable to have an Ito’s formula for operator-valued stochastic processes valid both for commuting and noncommuting cases.

## VI Conclusions

We have proven how any Lindblad evolution with selfadjoint Lindblad operators can be understood as an averaged random evolution operator. The proof included here allows us to extend the previous result to nonMarkovian situations, though keeping the Lindbladian structure of the master equations, and as a result we have provided a straightforward method to solve this kind of master equations. The conjunction of stochastic methods and the spectral representation theorem has also allowed us to generalize intrinsic decoherence models already present in the literature. The mathematical versatility of stochastic methods has also permitted us to propose a generalization to the Jaynes-Cummings model, and compare its predictions with experimental results in cavity QED as well as in ion traps. We have argued that the main physical advantage stems from the possibility of studying decohering effects not necessarily rooted on the environmental action upon the system. A comparison with dynamical collapse models reveals that the random unitary operators used here do not produce any kind of state vector reduction.

###### Acknowledgements.

One of us (D.S.) acknowledges the support of Madrid Education Council under grant BOCAM 20-08-1999.

## Appendix A Some Useful Identities

Though they are elementary we include some useful relations in order to render the text self-contained. First we will show how the moments of arbitrary order $`n`$ of the stochastic process $`_0^tv(s)𝑑_s`$$`v(t)`$ a real function– are calculated. Let us denote the stochastic process and their $`n`$th moments respectively as $`X_t_0^tv(s)𝑑_s`$ and $`\beta _n(t)𝔼\left[_0^tv(s)𝑑_s\right]^n`$. It is evident that $`X_0=0`$. $`X_t`$ satisfies the Stochastic Differential Equation $`dX_t=v(t)d_t`$. Applying Ito’s formula Oksendal (1998) to $`f(X_t)`$ with $`f(x)=x^n`$ and taking expectation values one readily arrives at

$$\beta _{2n}(t)=\frac{(2n)!}{2^nn!}\lambda ^n(t)$$
(A.56a)
$$\beta _{2n+1}(t)=0$$
(A.56b)
where $`\lambda (t)=_0^tv^2(s)𝑑s`$.
Using the well-known formula $`\mathrm{cos}(A+B)=\mathrm{cos}A\mathrm{cos}B\mathrm{sin}A\mathrm{sin}B`$, developing the trigonometric functions into a power series and using the previous result one can immediately arrive at

$$𝔼[\mathrm{cos}(b(t)+_0^tv(s)𝑑_s)]=e^{\frac{\lambda (t)}{2}}\mathrm{cos}b(t)$$
(A.57)
To calculate $`𝔼[\mathrm{cos}^2Z_t]`$, it is convenient to use $`\mathrm{cos}^2A=\frac{1+\mathrm{cos}2A}{2}`$ and then apply (A.57).
Finally theorem 3 of Louisell (1973) is quoted with the notation introduced in section II:

###### Theorem 1

If $`A`$ and $`B`$ are two fixed noncommuting operators and $`\xi `$ is a parameter, then

$$e^{\xi A}Be^{\xi A}=e^{\xi 𝒞_A}[B]$$
(A.58)
See original reference for the proof.