title: Quasilocality and efficient simulation of markovian quantum dynamics.
abstract: We consider open many-body systems governed by a time-dependent quantum master equation with short-range interactions. With a generalized Lieb-Robinson bound, we show that the evolution in this very generic framework is quasilocal; i.e., the evolution of observables can be approximated by implementing the dynamics only in a vicinity of the observables' support. The precision increases exponentially with the diameter of the considered subsystem. Hence, time evolution can be simulated on classical computers with a cost that is independent of the system size. Providing error bounds for Trotter decompositions, we conclude that the simulation on a quantum computer is additionally efficient in time. For experiments and simulations in the Schrödinger picture, our result can be used to rigorously bound finite-size effects.
authors.affiliation: Dahlem Center for Complex Quantum Systems, Freie Universität Berlin, 14195 Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Barthel
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kliesch