Spin relaxation dynamics with a continuous spin environment: The dissipaton equation of motion approach.

We investigate the quantum dynamics of a spin coupling to a bath of independent spins via the dissipaton equation of motion (DEOM) approach. The bath, characterized by a continuous spectral density function, is composed of spins that are independent level systems described by the su(2) Lie algebra, representing an environment with a large magnitude of anharmonicity. Based on the previous work by Suarez and Silbey [J. Chem. Phys. 95, 9115 (1991)] and by Makri [J. Chem. Phys. 111, 6164 (1999)] that the spin bath can be mapped to a Gaussian environment under its linear response limit, we use the time-domain Prony fitting decomposition scheme to the bare-bath time correlation function (TCF) given by the bosonic fluctuation-dissipation theorem to generate the exponential decay basis (or pseudo modes) for DEOM construction. The accuracy and efficiency of this strategy have been explored by a variety of numerical results. We envision that this work provides new insights into extending the hierarchical equations of motion and DEOM approach to certain types of anharmonic environments with arbitrary TCF or spectral density.