Abstract:
We consider a solvable problem describing the dynamics of a quantum oscillator interacting with an electromagnetic field, a classical force, and a heat bath. We propose a general method for solving Markovian master equations, the method of quantum trajectories. We construct the stochastic evolution operator involving the stochastic analogue of the Baker–Hausdorff formula and calculate the system density matrix for an arbitrary initial state. As a physical application, we evaluate the influence of the environment at a finite temperature on the accuracy of measuring a weak classical force by the interference method.