Nonlinear optical spectroscopy of open quantum systems

Development of experimental techniques at nanoscale resulted in ability to perform spectroscopic measurements on single-molecule current carrying junctions. These experiments are natural meeting point for research fields of optical spectroscopy and molecular electronics. We present a pedagogical comparison between perturbation theory expansion of standard nonlinear optical spectroscopy and (non-self-consistent) perturbative diagrammatic formulation of the nonequilibrium Green’s functions method (NEGF is widely used in molecular electronics) indicating their similarities and differences. Comparing the two approaches we argue that optical spectroscopy of open quantum systems has to be analyzed within the more general Green’s function formulation.