Collisional model with dissipative and dephasing baths: nonadditive effects at strong coupling

Abstract The repeated interaction model provides a framework for emulating and analyzing the dynamics of open quantum systems. We explore here the dynamics generated by this protocol in a system that is simultaneously coupled to two baths through noncommuting system operators. One bath is made to couple to nondiagonal elements of the system, thus it induces dissipative dynamics, while the other couples to diagonal elements, and by itself it generates pure dephasing. By solving the model analytically exactly, we show that when both baths act concurrently, a strong system-bath coupling gives rise to nonadditive effects in the dynamics. A prominent signature of this nonadditivity is the characteristic slowing down of population relaxation, driven by the influence of the dephasing bath. Beyond dynamics, we investigate the thermodynamic behavior of the model. Previous studies, using quantum master equations, showed that strong system-bath coupling created bath-cooperativity in this model, allowing heat exchange to the dephasing (diagonally coupled) bath. We find instead that, under the repeated interaction (RI) scheme, heat flows exclusively to the dissipative bath (coupled through nondiagonal elements). Our results highlight the need for a deeper understanding of the types of open quantum system (OQS) dynamics and steady-state phenomena that emerge within the RI framework and the relation of this protocol to other common OQS techniques.