We develop a versatile master equation approach to describe the nonequilibrium dynamics of a two-level system in contact with a bosonic environment, which allows for the exploration of a wide range of parameter regimes within a single formalism. As an experimentally relevant example, we apply this technique to the study of excitonic Rabi rotations in a driven quantum dot, and compare its predictions to the numerical Feynman integral approach. We find excellent agreement between the two methods across a generally difficult range of parameters. In particular, the variational master equation technique captures effects usually considered to be nonperturbative, such as multiphonon processes and bath-induced driving renormalization, and can give reliable results even in regimes in which previous master equation approaches fail.

• Received 3 June 2011
• Publisher error corrected 31 August 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.84.081305