  A linear open quantum system consisting of a harmonic oscillator linearly
coupled to an infinite set of independent harmonic oscillators is considered;
these oscillators have a general spectral density function and are initially in
a Gaussian state. Using the influence functional formalism a formal Langevin
equation can be introduced to describe the system's fully quantum properties
even beyond the semiclassical regime. It is shown that the reduced Wigner
function for the system is exactly the formal distribution function resulting
from averaging both over the initial conditions and the stochastic source of
the formal Langevin equation. The master equation for the reduced density
matrix is then obtained in the same way a Fokker-Planck equation can always be
derived from a Langevin equation characterizing a stochastic process. We also
show that a subclass of quantum correlation functions for the system can be
deduced within the stochastic description provided by the Langevin equation. It
is emphasized that when the system is not Markovian more information can be
extracted from the Langevin equation than from the master equation.
