Here we analyze the relationship between quantum contextuality and decoherence in interference experiments with matter particles by means of a simple reduced quantum-trajectory model, which attempts to simulate the behavior of the projections of multi-dimensional, system-plus-environment Bohmian trajectories onto the subspace of the reduced system. This model allows us to understand the crossing of the subsystem trajectories as a combined effect of interference quenching and erasure of ``which-way'' information, which can be of utility to interpret decoherence effects in many-dimensional systems where full Bohmian treatments become prohibitive computationally.
Quantum contextuality is a nonintuitive property of quantum mechanics, that distinguishes it from any classical theory. A complementary quantum property is quantum nonlocality, which is an essential resource for many quantum information tasks. Here we experimentally study the contextual and nonlocal properties of polarization biphotons. First, we investigate the ability of the biphotons to exhibit contextuality by testing the violation of the KCBS inequality. In order to do so, we used the original protocol suggested in the KCBS paper, and adjusted it to the real scenario, where some of the bi…
A complete theoretical treatment in many problems relevant to physics, chemistry, and biology requires considering the action of the environment over the system of interest. Usually the environment involves a relatively large number of degrees of freedom, this making the problem numerically intractable from a purely quantum-mechanical point of view. To overcome this drawback, a new class of quantum trajectories is proposed. These trajectories, based on the same grounds as Bohmian ones, are solely associated to the system reduced density matrix, since the evolution of the environment degrees of…
Decoherence is the process by which quantum systems interact and become correlated with their external environments; quantum trajectories are a powerful technique by which decohering systems can be resolved into stochastic evolutions, conditioned on different possible ``measurements'' of the environment. By calling on recently-developed tools from quantum information theory, we can analyze simplified models of decoherence, explicitly quantifying the flow of information and randomness between the system, the environment, and potential observers.
In a recent work (Borras et al., Phys. Rev. A {\bf 79}, 022108 (2009)), we have determined, for various decoherence channels, four-qubit initial states exhibiting the most robust possible entanglement. Here we explore some geometrical features of the trajectories in state space generated by the decoherence process, connecting the initially robust pure state with the completely decohered mixed state obtained at the end of the evolution. We characterize these trajectories by recourse to the distance between the concomitant time dependent mixed state and different reference states.
Using the methods of quantum trajectories we investigate the effects of dissipative decoherence in a quantum computer algorithm simulating dynamics in various regimes of quantum chaos including dynamical localization, quantum ergodic regime and quasi-integrable motion. As an example we use the quantum sawtooth algorithm which can be implemented in a polynomial number of quantum gates. It is shown that the fidelity of quantum computation decays exponentially with time and that the decay rate is proportional to the number of qubits, number of quantum gates and per gate dissipation rate induced b…
This study was started to know mysterious classicality of nuclei. This time, I found a new rule for decoherence. I used a model without chaos. As a result, it was shown that not only the intersection of classical trajectories but also branching of classical trajectories are needed for decoherence. In other words, it was shown that interactions between a main system and environments have to make enough branchings of classical trajectories of the main system for decoherence.
Griffiths' ``quantum trajectories'' formalism is extended to describe weak decoherence. The decoherence conditions are shown to severely limit the complexity of histories composed of fine-grained events.
The proposal that the interaction between a macroscopic body and its environment plays a crucial role in producing the correct classical limit in the Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics is investigated, in the context of a model of quantum Brownian motion. It is well known that one of the effects of the interaction is to produce an extremely rapid approximate diagonalisation of the reduced density matrix in the position representation. This effect is, by itself, insufficient to produce generically quasi-classical behaviour of the Bohmian trajectory. However, it is shown that, if the syste…
Quantum-enhanced parameter estimation has widespread applications in many fields. An important issue is to protect the estimation precision against the noise-induced decoherence. Here we develop a general theoretical framework for improving the precision for estimating an arbitrary parameter by monitoring the noise-induced quantum trajectorie (MQT) and establish its connections to the purification-based approach to quantum parameter estimation. MQT can be achieved in two ways: (i) Any quantum trajectories can be monitored by directly monitoring the environment, which is experimentally challeng…
We investigate the effect of decoherence on Fano resonances in wave transmission through resonant scattering structures. We show that the Fano asymmetry parameter q follows, as a function of the strength of decoherence, trajectories in the complex plane that reveal detailed information on the underlying decoherence process. Dissipation and unitary dephasing give rise to manifestly different trajectories. Our predictions are successfully tested against microwave experiments using metal cavities with different absorption coefficients and against previously published data on transport through qua…
Negative quasiprobability trajectories for Bell-diagonal states under local decoherence
Northwest University（西北大学）；Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Theoretical Physics Frontiers（陕西省理论物理前沿重点实验室）；Peng Huanwu Center for Fundamental Theory（彭桓武理论研究中心）；Fundamental Discipline Research Center for Quantum Science and Technology of Shaanxi Province（陕西省量子科学与技术基础学科研究中心）
A direct classical analog of the quantum dynamics of intrinsic decoherence in Hamiltonian systems, characterized by the time dependence of the linear entropy of the reduced density operator, is introduced. The similarities and differences between the classical and quantum decoherence dynamics of an initial quantum state are exposed using both analytical and computational results. In particular, the classicality of early-time intrinsic decoherence dynamics is explored analytically using a second-order perturbative treatment, and an interesting connection between decoherence rates and the stabil…
Solution of free particle quantum master equation with spatial decoherence can be unravelled into stochastic quantum trajectories in many ways. The first example, published in 1985, proposed a piecewise deterministic jump process for the wave function. While alternative unravellings, diffusive ones in particular, proved to be tractable analytically, the jump process 1985, also called orthojump, allows for few analytic results, it needs numeric methods as well. Here we prove that, similarly to diffusive unravellings, it is localizing the quantum state.
In this review we deal with open (dissipative and stochastic) quantum systems within the Bohmian mechanics framework which has the advantage to provide a clear picture of quantum phenomena in terms of trajectories, originally in configuration space. The gradual decoherence process is studied from linear and nonlinear Schrödinger equations through Bohmian trajectories as well as by using the so-called quantum-classical transition differential equation through scaled trajectories. This transition is governed by a continuous parameter, the transition parameter, covering these two extreme open dyn…
Our account of the problem of the classical limit of quantum mechanics involves two elements. The first one is self-induced decoherence, conceived as a process that depends on the own dynamics of a closed quantum system governed by a Hamiltonian with continuous spectrum; the study of decoherence is addressed by means of a formalism used to give meaning to the van Hove states with diagonal singularities. The second element is macroscopicity: when the macroscopic limit is applied to the Wigner transformation of the diagonal state resulting from decoherence, the description of the quantum system …
Decoherence of quantum systems from entanglement with an unmonitored environment is to date the most compelling explanation of the emergence of a classical picture from a quantum world. While it is well understood for a single Lindblad operator, the role in the einselection process of a complex system-environment interaction remains to be clarified. In this paper, we analyze an open quantum dynamics inspired by CQED experiments with two non-commuting Lindblad operators modeling decoherence in the number basis and dissipative decoherence in the coherent state basis. We study and solve exactly t…
Conditional expectation values of quantum mechanical observables reflect unique non-classical correlations, and are generally sensitive to decoherence. We consider the circumstances under which such sensitivity to decoherence is removed, namely, when the measurement process is subjected to conservation laws. Specifically, we address systems with additive conserved quantities and identify sufficient conditions for the system state such that its coherence plays no role in the conditional expectation values of observables that commute with the conserved quantity. We discuss our findings for a spe…
It is shown that many dissipative phenomena of "old" quantum mechanics which appeared 100 years ago in the form of the statistics of quantum thermal noise and quantum spontaneous jumps, have never been explained by the "new" conservative quantum mechanics discovered 75 years ago by Heisenberg and Schroedinger. This led to numerous quantum paradoxes which are reconsidered in this paper. The development of quantum measurement theory, initiated by von Neumann, indicated a possibility for resolution of this interpretational crisis by divorcing the algebra of the dynamical generators from the algeb…
Attosecond Path Qubits in High-Harmonic Generation: Classical Dephasing and Trace-Out Decoherence
Guangdong Technion - Israel Institute of Technology（广东以色列理工学院）；Technion – Israel Institute of Technology（以色列理工学院）；Eastern Institute of Technology（东方理工大学）
Using the methods of quantum trajectories we study effects of dissipative decoherence on the accuracy of the Grover quantum search algorithm. The dependence on the number of qubits and dissipation rate are determined and tested numerically with up to 16 qubits. As a result, our numerical and analytical studies give the universal law for decay of fidelity and probability of searched state which are induced by dissipative decoherence effects. This law is in agreement with the results obtained previously for quantum chaos algorithms.
Dipoles interference is studied when atomic systems are coupled to classical electromagnetic fields. The interaction between the dipoles and the classical fields induces a time-varying Aharonov-Casher phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppression of fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitable experimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be observable and almost as large as the corresponding one for coherent electrons. We analyze different trajectories in order to show the dependence of the decoherence factor with the velocity of the part…
A nonlinear quantum-classical transition wave equation is proposed for dissipative systems within the Caldirola-Kanai model. Equivalence of this transition equation to a scaled Schrödinger equation is proved. The dissipative dynamics is then studied in terms of what we call scaled trajectories following the standard procedure used in Bohmian mechanics. These trajectories depend on a continuous parameter allowing us a smooth transition from Bohmian to classical trajectories. Arrival times and actual momentum distribution functions are also analyzed. The propagation of a Gaussian wave packet in …
We discuss the evolution of purity in mixed quantum/classical approaches to electronic nonadiabatic dynamics in the context of the Ehrenfest model. As it is impossible to exactly determine initial conditions for a realistic system, we choose to work in the statistical Ehrenfest formalism that we introduced in Ref. 1. From it, we develop a new framework to determine exactly the change in the purity of the quantum subsystem along the evolution of a statistical Ehrenfest system. In a simple case, we verify how and to which extent Ehrenfest statistical dynamics makes a system with more than one cl…
I show explicitly how concerns about wave function collapse and ontology can be decoupled from the bulk of technical analysis necessary to recover localized, approximately Newtonian trajectories from quantum theory. In doing so, I demonstrate that the account of classical behavior provided by decoherence theory can be straightforwardly tailored to give accounts of classical behavior on multiple interpretations of quantum theory, including the Everett, de Broglie-Bohm and GRW interpretations. I further show that this interpretation-neutral, decoherence-based account conforms to a general view o…
We study various measures of classicality of the states of open quantum systems subject to decoherence. Classical states are expected to be stable in spite of decoherence, and are thought to leave conspicuous imprints on the environment. Here these expected features of environment-induced superselection (einselection) are quantified using four different criteria: predictability sieve (which selects states that produce least entropy), purification time (which looks for states that are the easiest to find out from the imprint they leave on the environment), efficiency threshold (which finds stat…
Bohmian mechanics is a realistic interpretation of quantum theory. It shares the same ontology of classical mechanics: particles following continuous trajectories in space through time. For this ontological continuity, it seems to be a good candidate for recovering the classical limit of quantum theory. Indeed, in a Bohmian framework, the issue of the classical limit reduces to showing how classical trajectories can emerge from Bohmian ones, under specific classicality assumptions. In this paper, we shall focus on a technical problem that arises from the dynamics of a Bohmian system in bounded…
We analyze the paper "The wave mechanics of $α$-ray tracks" (Mott, 1929), published in 1929 by N.F. Mott. In particular, we discuss the theoretical context in which the paper appeared and give a detailed account of the approach used by the author and the main result attained. Moreover, we comment on the relevance of the work not only as far as foundations of Quantum Mechanics are concerned but also as the earliest pioneering contribution in decoherence theory.
We consider a point particle in one dimension initially confined to a finite spatial region whose state is frequently monitored by projection operators onto that region. In the limit of infinitely frequent monitoring, the state never escapes from the region -- this is the Zeno effect. The aim of this paper is to show how the Zeno effect disappears in the classical limit in this and similar examples. We give a general argument showing that the Zeno effect is suppressed in the presence of a decoherence mechanism which kills interference between histories. We show how this works explicitly by cou…
Quantum open systems evolve according to completely positive, trace preserving maps acting on the density operator, which can equivalently be unraveled in term of so-called quantum trajectories. These stochastic sequences of pure states correspond to the actual dynamics of the quantum system during single realizations of an experiment in which the system's environment is monitored. In this chapter, we present an extension of stochastic thermodynamics to the case of open quantum systems, which builds on the analogy between the quantum trajectories and the trajectories in phase space of classica…
Decoherence challenges in Nanoscience: A Quantum Phase Space perspective
Faculty of Sciences, University of Antananarivo（塔那那利佛大学理学院）；Institut National des Sciences et Techniques Nucléaires（国家核科学与技术研究所）；TWAS Madagascar Chapter, Malagasy Academy（马尔加什科学院 TWAS 马达加斯加分会）
Dissipative quantum tunnelling through an inverted parabolic barrier is considered in the presence of an electric field. A Schrödinger-Langevin or Kostin quantum classical transition wave equation is used and applied resulting in a scaled differential equation of motion. A Gaussian wave packet solution to the resulting scaled Kostin nonlinear equation is assumed and compared to the same solution for the scaled linear Caldirola-Kanai equation. The resulting scaled trajectories are obtained at different dynamical regimes and friction cases, showing the gradual decoherence process in this open dy…
We quantum-simulated the 2D Harper-Hofstadter (HH) lattice model in a highly elongated tube geometry -- three sites in circumference -- using an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate. In addition to the usual transverse (out-of-plane) magnetic flux, piercing the surface of the tube, we threaded a longitudinal flux $Φ_{\rm L}$ down the axis of the tube This geometry evokes an Aharonov-Bohm interferometer, where noise in $Φ_{\rm L}$ would readily decohere the interference present in trajectories encircling the tube. We observe this behavior only when transverse flux is a rational fraction of the flux-…
Square billiards are quantum systems complying with the dynamical quantum-classical correspondence. Hence an initially localized wavefunction launched along a classical periodic orbit evolves along that orbit, the spreading of the quantum amplitude being controlled by the spread of the corresponding classical statistical distribution. We investigate wavepacket dynamics and compute the corresponding de Broglie-Bohm trajectories in the quantum square billiard. We also determine the trajectories and statistical distribution dynamics for the equivalent classical billiard. Individual Bohmian trajec…
The length of time that a quantum system can exist in a superposition state is determined by how strongly it interacts with its environment. This interaction entangles the quantum state with the inherent fluctuations of the environment. If these fluctuations are not measured, the environment can be viewed as a source of noise, causing random evolution of the quantum system from an initially pure state into a statistical mixture-a process known as decoherence. However, by accurately measuring the environment in real time, the quantum system can be maintained in a pure state and its time evoluti…
A single-electron two-path interference (Young) experiment is considered theoretically. The decoherence of an electron wave packet due to the 'which path' trace left in the conducting (metallic) plate placed under the electron trajectories is calculated using the many-body quantum description of the electron gas reservoir.
Tomography of a quantum state is usually based on positive operator-valued measure (POVM) and on their experimental statistics. Among the available reconstructions, the maximum-likelihood (MaxLike) technique is an efficient one. We propose an extension of this technique when the measurement process cannot be simply described by an instantaneous POVM. Instead, the tomography relies on a set of quantum trajectories and their measurement records. This model includes the fact that, in practice, each measurement could be corrupted by imperfections and decoherence, and could also be associated with …
Continuous weak measurement allows localizing open quantum systems in state space, and tracing out their quantum trajectory as they evolve in time. Efficient quantum measurement schemes have previously enabled recording quantum trajectories of microwave photon and qubit states. We apply these concepts to a macroscopic mechanical resonator, and follow the quantum trajectory of its motional state conditioned on a continuous optical measurement record. Starting with a thermal mixture, we eventually obtain coherent states of 78% purity--comparable to a displaced thermal state of occupation 0.14. W…
We examine environmental decoherence of cosmological perturbations in order to study the quantum-to-classical transition and the impact of noise on entanglement during inflation. Given an explicit interaction between the system and environment, we derive a quantum master equation for the reduced density matrix of perturbations, drawing parallels with quantum Brownian motion, where we see the emergence of fluctuation and dissipation terms. Although the master equation is not in Lindblad form, we see how typical solutions exhibit positivity on super-horizon scales, leading to a physically meanin…
We formulate computationally efficient classical stochastic measurement trajectories for a multimode quantum system under continuous observation. Specifically, we consider the nonlinear dynamics of an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate contained within an optical cavity subject to continuous monitoring of the light leaking out of the cavity. The classical trajectories encode within a classical phase-space representation a continuous quantum measurement process conditioned on a given detection record. We derive a Fokker-Planck equation for the quasi-probability distribution of the combined condens…
The classical limit of non-integrable quantum systems is studied. We define non-integrable quantum systems as those which have, as their classical limit, a non-integrable classical system. In order to obtain this limit, the self-induced decoherence approach and the corresponding classical limit are generalized from integrable to non-integrable systems. In this approach, the lost of information, usually conceived as the result of a coarse-graining or the trace of an environment, is produced by a particular choice of the algebra of observables and the systematic use of mean values, that project …
We review different attempts to show the decoherence process in double-slit-like experiments both for charged particles (electrons) and neutral particles with permanent dipole moments. Interference is studied when electrons or atomic systems are coupled to classical or quantum electromagnetic fields. The interaction between the particles and time-dependent fields induces a time-varying Aharonov phase. Averaging over the phase generates a suppression of fringe visibility in the interference pattern. We show that, for suitable experimental conditions, the loss of contrast for dipoles can be almo…
We consider the problem of decoherence and relaxation of open bosonic quantum systems from a perspective alternative to the standard master equation or quantum trajectories approaches. Our method is based on the dynamics of expectation values of observables evaluated in a coherent state representation. We examine a model of a quantum nonlinear oscillator with a density-density interaction with a collection of environmental oscillators at finite temperature. We derive the exact solution for dynamics of observables and demonstrate a consistent perturbation approach.
Intrinsic mixed state topological order in a stabilizer system under stochastic decoherence: Strong-to-weak spontaneous symmetry breaking from percolation point of view
