We study the effects of symmetry breaking on non-Markovian dynamics in various system-bath arrangements. It is shown that by breaking certain symmetries features signaling non-Markovian time evolution disappear within a finite time t_{ g}. We demonstrate numerically that the scaling of t_{ g} with the symmetry breaking strength is different for various types of symmetry. We provide a mathematical explanation for these differences related to the spectrum of the total system-bath Hamiltonian and provide arguments that the scaling properties of t_{ g} should be universal.
Categories: quant-ph cond-mat.str-el