Tunable non-Markovian dynamics in a collision model: an application to coherent transport

Abstract We propose a collision model to investigate the information dynamics of a system coupled to an environment with varying degrees of non-Markovianity. We control the degree of non-Markovianity by applying a depolarising channel to a fixed and rigid reservoir of qubits. We characterise the effect of the depolarising channel and apply the model to study the coherent transport of information on a chain of three interacting qubits. We show how the system-environment coupling probability and the degree of non-Markovianity affect the process. Interestingly, in some cases a Markovian environment is preferable to reduce information loss and enhance the coherent transport.