Zooming in on quantum trajectories

We propose to use the effect of measurements instead of their number to study the time evolution of quantum systems under monitoring. This time redefinition acts like a microscope which blows up the inner details of seemingly instantaneous transitions like quantum jumps. In the simple example of a continuously monitored qubit coupled to a heat bath, we show that this procedure provides well defined and simple evolution equations in an otherwise singular strong monitoring limit. We show that there exists anomalous observable localized on sharp transitions which can only be resolved with our new effective time. We apply our simplified description to study the competition between information extraction and dissipation in the evolution of the linear entropy. Finally, we show that the evolution of the new time as a function of the real time is closely related to a stable Lévy process of index 1/2. (letter)