Dynamics of Reservoir Observables within the Zwanzig Projection Operator Method in the Theory of Open Quantum Systems

One of the main methods for describing the dynamics of open quantum systems is the method of quantum master equations. These equations describe the dynamics of the reduced density operator of a system interacting with a reservoir. In this case, averaging is performed over the degrees of freedom of the reservoir, which does not allow one to describe the dynamics of reservoir observables. In this paper we show that applying the Zwanzig projection operator method, which is used in deriving quantum master equations, one can also derive dynamic equations for reservoir observables. As an example, we derive dynamic equations for the average number of quanta (photons, phonons) of a bosonic reservoir in the approximation of its weak coupling to the system in the case of the dipole interaction Hamiltonian.