We establish a direct connection of quantum Markovianity of an open system to its classical counterpart by generalizing the criterion based on the information flow. Here the flow is characterized by the time evolution of Helstrom matrices, given by the weighted difference of statistical operators, under the action of the quantum dynamical map. It turns out that the introduced criterion is equivalent to $P$ divisibility of a quantum process, namely, divisibility in terms of positive maps, which provides a direct connection to classical Markovian stochastic processes. Moreover, it is shown that mathematical representations similar to those found for the original trace-distance-based measure hold true for the associated generalized measure for quantum non-Markovianity. That is, we prove orthogonality of optimal states showing a maximal information backflow and establish a local and universal representation of the measure. We illustrate some properties of the generalized criterion by means of examples.

• Received 31 July 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.92.042108