Abstract
In this paper we investigate the averaged dynamics of quantum systems under the influence of classical stochastic fields. This influence is modeled using a stochastic Hamiltonian evolution for the system-density matrix. From the averaged dynamics, a general characterization of the short-time decoherence behavior is obtained. General applicable short-time perturbation expansions for the input-output fidelity and its generalizations for mixed states are developed. The master equations of the systems that can be worked out without a perturbative expansion, i.e., any system subject to dispersive noise and the quantum harmonic oscillator subject to amplitude noise, are extensively analyzed. In both cases all non-Markovian features are worked out in an exact way. We apply these cases to the study of heating of trapped ions.