  The study of open quantum systems has become increasingly important in the
past years, as the ability to control quantum coherence on a single particle
level has been developed in a wide variety of physical systems. In quantum
optics, the study of open systems goes well beyond understanding the breakdown
of quantum coherence. There, the coupling to the environment is sufficiently
well understood that it can be manipulated to drive the system into desired
quantum states, or to project the system onto known states via feedback in
quantum measurements. Many mathematical frameworks have been developed to
describe such systems, which for atomic, molecular, and optical (AMO) systems
generally provide a very accurate description of the open quantum system on a
microscopic level. In recent years, AMO systems including cold atomic and
molecular gases and trapped ions have been applied heavily to the study of
many-body physics, and it has become important to extend previous understanding
of open system dynamics in single- and few-body systems to this many-body
context. A key formalism that has already proven very useful in this context is
the quantum trajectories technique. This was developed as a numerical tool for
studying dynamics in open quantum systems, and falls within a broader framework
of continuous measurement theory as a way to understand the dynamics of large
classes of open quantum systems. We review the progress that has been made in
studying open many-body systems in the AMO context, focussing on the
application of ideas from quantum optics, and on the implementation and
applications of quantum trajectories methods. Control over dissipative
processes promises many further tools to prepare interesting and important
states in strongly interacting systems, including the realisation of parameter
regimes in quantum simulators that are inaccessible via current techniques.
