Weak invariants of time-dependent quantum dissipative systems

The concept of weak invariant is introduced. Then, the weak invariants associated with time-dependent quantum dissipative systems are discussed in the context of master equations of the Lindblad type. In particular, with the help of the su(1,1) Lie-algebraic structure, the weak invariant is explicitly constructed for the quantum damped harmonic oscillator with the time-dependent frequency and friction coefficient. This generalizes the Lewis-Riesenfeld invariant to the case of nonunitary dynamics in the Markovian approximation.