Coarse-grained kinetic equations for quantum systems

The nonequilibrium density matrix method is employed to derive a master equation for the averaged state populations of an open quantum system subjected to an external high frequency stochastic field. It is shown that if the characteristic time τstoch of the stochastic process is much lower than the characteristic time τsteady of the establishment of the system steady state populations, then on the time scale Δt ∼ τsteady, the evolution of the system populations can be described by the coarse-grained kinetic equations with the averaged transition rates. As an example, the exact averaging is carried out for the dichotomous Markov process of the kangaroo type.