Liouville space theory of sequential quantum processes. I. General theory

Abstract

The theory of sequential quantum processes has been extended to Liouville space via the use of non-Hermitian projection operators in order to treat the evolution of the quantum density operator and to enable physically important matrix elements of the density operator to be calculated. The formal relationship of master equation methods to the theory of sequential quantum processes is established, and a new set of coupled master equations is derived. Special choices of projection operators lead to further simplification of the results. The Markoff approximation is also examined.