Stable and Metastable Freezing of Classical Correlations in Qutrits

We study the dynamics of quantum and classical correlations in a two-qutrit system coupled to independent reservoirs. In particular, we address the differences in the dynamics of Markovian and non-Markovian regimes and show that for specific initial states, classical correlations exhibit abrupt changes along the dynamics. A particular sudden change occurs when the classical correlations freeze to a certain value at a given time, revealing the apparition of a pointer-state basis. After this given time, the decoherence only affects quantum correlations. Here we identify two regimes in the decoherence dynamics: a mixed regime when both classical and quantum correlations decay and a quantum regime when only quantum correlations decay. We show that the freezing of classical correlations can be stable or metastable depending on the system-reservoir parameters. In the long-time limit, we find analytical expressions for the pointer-state basis the system settles in and consequently for classical and quantum correlations. © 2017 American Physical Society.