We derive and investigate a general non-Markovian equation for the time-dependence of a Hamiltonian that maximizes the fidelity of a desired quantum gate on any finite-dimensional quantum system in the presence of arbitrary bath and noise sources. The method is illustrated for a single-qubit gate implemented on a three-level system.
We present an optical device which is capable of heralding a variety of DFS states which protect against collective noise. Specifically, it can prepare all three basis states which span a DFS qutrit as well as an arbitrarily encoded DFS qubit state. We also discuss an interferometric technique for determining the amplitudes associated with an arbitrary encoding. The heralded state may find use in coherent optical systems which exhibit collective correlations.
We study decoherence properties of arbitrarily long histories constructed from a fixed projective partition of a finite dimensional Hilbert space. We show that decoherence of such histories for all initial states that are naturally induced by the projective partition implies decoherence for arbitrary initial states. In addition we generalize the simple necessary decoherence condition [Scherer et al., Phys. Lett. A (2004)] for such histories to the case of arbitrary coarse-graining.
We show that the stationary decoherence rate of an open quantum system can be decomposed as a sum of local and nonlocal contributions, respectively related to the strength of the coupling between system and environment, and to the quality of the information about the system leaking into the environment. Both terms arise naturally in the framework of the influence functional, with the nonlocal term arising from the coupling between the backward and forward histories describing the open quantum system time evolution. While the local contribution always yields a positive decoherence rate, the non…
Nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces has attracted increasing attention recently, as it allows for high-speed implementation and combines both the robustness of holonomic gates and the coherence stabilization of decoherence-free subspaces. Since the first protocol of nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces, a number of schemes for its physical implementation have been put forward. However, all previous schemes require two noncommuting gates to realize an arbitrary one-qubit gate, which doubles the exposure time of gates to er…
We point out that the celebrated GRW master-equation is invariant under translations, reflecting the homogeneity of space, thus providing a particular realization of a general class of translation-covariant Markovian master-equations. Such master-equations are typically used for the description of decoherence due to momentum transfers between system and environment. Building on this analogy we show the exact relationship between the GRW master-equation and decoherence master-equations, further providing a collisional decoherence model formally equivalent to the GRW master-equation. This allows…
A direct classical analog of quantum decoherence is introduced. Similarities and differences between decoherence dynamics examined quantum mechanically and classically are exposed via a second-order perturbative treatment and via a strong decoherence theory, showing a strong dependence on the nature of the system-environment coupling. For example, for the traditionally assumed linear coupling, the classical and quantum results are shown to be in exact agreement.
We consider the problem of mapping digital data encoded on a quantum register to analog amplitudes in parallel. It is shown to be unlikely that a fully unitary polynomial-time quantum algorithm exists for this problem; NP becomes a subset of BQP if it exists. In the practical point of view, we propose a nonunitary linear-time algorithm using quantum decoherence. It tacitly uses an exponentially large physical resource, which is typically a huge number of identical molecules. Quantumness of correlation appearing in the process of the algorithm is also discussed.
In quantum computation theory, quantum random walks have been utilized by many quantum search algorithms which provide improved performance over their classical counterparts. However, due to the importance of the quantum decoherence phenomenon, decoherent quantum walks and their applications have been studied on a wide variety of structures. Recently, a unified time-inhomogeneous coin-turning random walk with rescaled limiting distributions, Bernoulli, uniform, arcsine and semi-circle laws as parameter varies have been obtained. In this paper we study the quantum analogue of these models. We o…
We present a general formulation to suppress pure dephasing by multipulse control. The formula is free from a specific form of interaction and is expressed in terms of the correlation function of arbitrary system-reservoir interaction.
We investigate the time evolution of entanglement for bipartite systems of arbitrary dimensions under the influence of decoherence. For qubits, we determine the precise entanglement decay rates under different system-environment couplings, including finite temperature effects. For qudits, we show how to obtain upper bounds for the decay rates and also present exact solutions for various classes of states.
The possible effect of environment on the efficiency of a quantum algorithm is considered explicitely. It is illustrated through the example of Shor's prime factorization algorithm that this effect may be disastrous. The influence of environment on quantum computation is probed on the basis of its analogy to the problem of wave function collapse in quantum measurement.Techniques from the Hepp-Colemen approach and its generalization are used to deal with decoherence problems in quantum computation including dynamic mechanism of decoherence, quantum error avoiding tricks and calculation of decoh…
We consider a quantum harmonic oscillator coupled to a general nonequilibrium environment. We show that the decoherence factor can be expressed in terms of a measurable effective temperature, defined via a generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation. We further propose a simple experimental scheme to determine the time-dependent effective temperature in a linear Paul trap with engineered reservoirs. Our formalism allows quantitative description of nonequilibrium decoherence in the presence of an arbitrary number of non-Markovian noise sources in a unified manner.
We demonstrate that a classical emulation of quantum gate operations, here represented by an actual analog electronic device, can be modeled accurately as a quantum operation in terms of a universal set of Pauli operators. This observation raises the possibility that quantum error correction methods may be applied to classical systems to improve fault tolerance.
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…
We demonstrate storage and manipulation of one qubit encoded into a decoherence-free subspace (DFS) of two nuclear spins using liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. The DFS is spanned by states that are unaffected by arbitrary collective phase noise. Encoding and decoding procedures reversibly map an arbitrary qubit state from a single data spin to the DFS and back. The implementation demonstrates the robustness of the DFS memory against engineered dephasing with arbitrary strength as well as a substantial increase in the amount of quantum information retained, relative to …
We propose and analyse a robust quantum state transfer protocol by the use of a combination of coherent quantum coupling and decoherence-free subspaces in a coupled quantum spin chain. Under decoherence, an arbitrary unknown quantum state embedded in a decoherence-free subspace can be perfectly transferred through a noisy channel being weakly coupled to two end registers. The method protects quantum information from both the channel noise and the environmental decoherence. A special case of utilizing two physical qubits to encode one logical qubit is considered as an example and the robustness…
In this article we develop, step by step, the framework for universal dynamical control of two-level systems (TLS) or qubits experiencing amplitude- or phase-noise (AN or PN) due to coupling to a thermal bath. A comprehensive arsenal of modulation schemes is introduced and applied to either AN or PN, resulting in completely analogous formulae for the decoherence rates, thus underscoring the unified nature of this universal formalism. We then address the extension of this formalism to multipartite decoherence control, where symmetries are exploited to overcome decoherence.
There are quantum states of light that can be expressed as finite superpositions of Fock states (FSFS). We demonstrate the nonclassicality of an arbitrary FSFS by means of its phase space distributions such as the Wigner function and the $Q$-function. The decoherence of the FSFS is studied by considering the time evolution of its Wigner function in amplitude decay and phase damping channels. As examples, we determine the nonclassicality and decoherence of generalized and reciprocal binomial states.
Within the decoherent histories formulation of quantum mechanics, we investigate necessary conditions for decoherence of arbitrarily long histories. We prove that fine-grained histories of arbitrary length decohere for all classical initial states if and only if the unitary evolution preserves classicality of states (using a natural formal definition of classicality). We give a counterexample showing that this equivalence does not hold for coarse-grained histories.
We analyze decoherence-free (DF) quantum information in the presence of an arbitrary non-nearest-neighbor bath-induced system Hamiltonian using a Markovian master equation. We show that the most appropriate encoding for N qubits is probably contained within the ~(2/9) N excitation subspace. We give a timescale over which one would expect to apply other methods to correct for the system Hamiltonian. In order to remain applicable to experiment, we then focus on small systems, and present examples of DF quantum information for three and four qubits. We give an encoding for four qubits that, while…
Quantum walks are dynamic systems with a wide range of applications in quantum computation and quantum simulation of analog systems, therefore it is of common interest to understand what changes from an isolated process to one embedded in an environment. In the present work, we analyze the decoherence in a three-state uni-dimensional quantum walk. The approaches taken into consideration to account for the environment effects are phase and amplitude damping Kraus operators, unitary noise on the coin space, and broken links.
The influence of decoherence on the fidelity of quantum memories for photonic qubits based on dark-state polaritons in atomic ensembles is discussed. It is shown that despite the large entanglement of the collective storage states corresponding to single photons or nonclassical states of light the sensitivity to decoherence does not scale with the number of atoms. This is due to the existence of equivalence classes of storage states corresponding to states with the same number of dark-state polariton excitations but arbitrary excitations in other polariton modes. Several decoherence processes …
A unified theory is given of dynamically modified decay and decoherence of field-driven multilevel multipartite entangled states that are weakly coupled to zero-temperature baths or undergo random phase fluctuations. The theory allows for arbitrary local differences in their coupling to the environment. Due to such differences, the optimal driving-field modulation to ensure maximal fidelity is found to substantially differ from conventional ``Bang-Bang'' or $π$-phase flips of the single-qubit evolution.
Since there are many examples in which no decoherence-free subsystems exist (among them all cases where the error generators act irreducibly on the system Hilbert space), it is of interest to search for novel mechanisms which suppress decoherence in these more general cases. Drawing on recent work (quant-ph/0502153) we present three results which indicate decoherence suppression without the need for noiseless subsystems. There is a certain trade-off; our results do not necessarily apply to an arbitrary initial density matrix, or for completely generic noise parameters. On the other hand, our c…
The dynamics of a quantum anharmonic oscillator whose position is monitored by a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped in a symmetric double well potential is studied. The (non-exponential) decoherence induced on the oscillator by the measuring device is analysed. A detailed quasiclassical and quantum analysis is presented. In the first case, for an arbitrary initial coherent state, two different decoherence regimes are observed: An initial Gaussian decay followed by a power law decay for longer times. The characteristic time scales of both regimes are reported. Analytical approximated expres…
We consider a free charged particle interacting with an electromagnetic bath at zero temperature. The dipole approximation is used to treat the bath wavelengths larger than the width of the particle wave packet. The effect of these wavelengths is described then by a linear Hamiltonian whose form is analogous to phenomenological Hamiltonians previously adopted to describe the free particle-bath interaction. We study how the time dependence of decoherence evolution is related with initial particle-bath correlations. We show that decoherence is related to the time dependent dressing of the partic…
We investigate the decoherence dynamics of continuous variable entanglement as the system-environment coupling strength varies from the weak-coupling to the strong-coupling regimes. Due to the existence of localized modes in the strong-coupling regime, the system cannot approach equilibrium with its environment, which induces a nonequilibrium quantum phase transition. We analytically solve the entanglement decoherence dynamics for an arbitrary spectral density. The nonequilibrium quantum phase transition is demonstrated as the system-environment coupling strength varies for all the Ohmic-type …
Ising models, and the physical systems described by them, play a central role in generating entangled states for use in quantum metrology and quantum information. In particular, ultracold atomic gases, trapped ion systems, and Rydberg atoms realize long-ranged Ising models, which even in the absence of a transverse field can give rise to highly non-classical dynamics and long-range quantum correlations. In the first part of this paper, we present a detailed theoretical framework for studying the dynamics of such systems driven (at time t=0) into arbitrary unentangled non-equilibrium states, th…
The dynamics of a decohering two-level system driven by a suitable control Hamiltonian is studied. The control procedure is implemented as a sequence of radiofrequency pulses that repetitively flip the state of the system, a technique that can be termed quantum "bang-bang" control after its classical analog. Decoherence introduced by the system's interaction with a quantum environment is shown to be washed out completely in the limit of continuous flipping and greatly suppressed provided the interval between the pulses is made comparable to the correlation time of the environment. The model su…
We study coherent superpositions of clockwise and anti-clockwise rotating intermediate complexes with overlapping resonances formed in bimolecular chemical reactions. Disintegration of such complexes represents an analog of famous double-slit experiment. The time for disappearance of the interference fringes is estimated from heuristic arguments related to fingerprints of chaotic dynamics of a classical counterpart of the coherently rotating complex. Validity of this estimate is confirmed numerically for the H+D$_2$ chemical reaction. Thus we demonstrate the quantum--classical transition in te…
We present a protocol to construct an arbitrary quantum circuit. The quantum bits (qubits) are encoded in polarisation states of single photons. They are stored in spatially separated dense media deposed in an optical cavity. Specific sequences of pulses address individually the storage media to encode the qubits and to implement a universal set of gates. The proposed protocol is decoherence-free in the sense that spontaneous emission and cavity damping are avoided. We discuss a coupling scheme for experimental implementation in Neon atoms.
Quantum error-correction routines are developed for continuous quantum variables such as position and momentum. The result of such analog quantum error correction is the construction of composite continuous quantum variables that are largely immune to the effects of noise and decoherence.
We study the decoherence and thermalization of an Unruh-DeWitt detector linearly coupled to the free massless scalar field in flat spacetime of arbitrary dimensions ($d\geq 2$). The initial state of the detector is chosen to be a pure state consisting of a linear superposition of ground and excited states, and we calculate the time evolution of reduced density matrix of the detector. Using perturbation method, we analytically derive the transition rate of the detector (the rate of change of the diagonal elements in the density matrix) and the decoherence rate (the rate of change of the off-dia…
Non-adiabatic holonomic quantum gate in decoherence-free subspaces is of greatly practical importance due to its built-in fault tolerance, coherence stabilization virtues, and short run-time. Here we propose some compact schemes to implement two- and three-qubit controlled unitary quantum gates and Fredkin gate. For the controlled unitary quantum gates, the unitary operator acting on the target qubit is an arbitrary single-qubit gate operation. The controlled quantum gates can be directly implemented using non-adiabatic holonomy in decoherence-free subspaces and the required resource for the d…
Simulation of interacting electron systems is one of the great challenges of modern quantum chemistry and solid state physics. Controllable quantum systems offer the opportunity to create artificial structures which mimic the system of interest. An interesting quantity to extract from these quantum simulations is the spectral function. We map a noisy quantum simulator onto a fermionic system and investigate the influence of decoherence on the simulation of the spectral density using a diagrammatic approach on Keldysh contour. We show that features stronger than the single-qubit decoherence rat…
We present an experimental and numerical study of the effects of decoherence on a quantum system whose classical analogue has Kolmogorov-Arnol'd-Moser (KAM) tori in its phase space. Atoms are prepared in a caesium magneto-optical trap at temperatures and densities which necessitate a quantum description. This real quantum system is coupled to the environment via spontaneous emission. The degree of coupling is varied and the effects of this coupling on the quantum coherence of the system are studied. When the classical diffusion through a partially broken torus is < hbar, diffusion of quantum p…
We address decoherence and classicalization of continuous-time quantum walks (CTQWs) on graphs. In particular, we investigate three different models of decoherence, and employ the quantum-classical (QC) dynamical distance as a figure of merit to assess whether, and to which extent, decoherence classicalizes the CTQW, i.e. turns it into the analogue classical process. We show that the dynamics arising from intrinsic decoherence, i.e. dephasing in the energy basis, do not fully classicalize the walker and partially preserves quantum features. On the other hand, dephasing in the position basis, a…
We study a model of dephasing (decoherence) in a two-state quantum system (qubit) coupled to a bath of harmonic oscillators. An exact analytic solution for the reduced dynamics of a two-state system in this model has been obtained previously for factorizing initial states of the combined system. We show that the model admits exact solutions for a large class of correlated initial states which are typical in the theory of quantum measurements. We derive exact expressions for the off-diagonal elements of the qubit density matrix, which hold for an arbitrary strength of coupling between the qubit…
We experimentally demonstrate room-temperature storage of quantum entanglement using two nuclear spins weakly coupled to the electronic spin carried by a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond. We realize universal quantum gate control over the three-qubit spin system and produce entangled states encoded within the decoherence-free subspace of the two nuclear spins. By injecting arbitrary collective noise, we demonstrate that the decoherence-free entangled state has coherence time longer than that of other entangled states by an order of magnitude in our experiment.
The pulse control of decoherence in a qubit interacting with a quantum environment is studied with focus on a general case where decoherence is induced by both pure dephasing and population decay. To observe how the decoherence is suppressed by periodic pi pulses, we present a simple method to calculate the time evolution of a qubit under arbitrary pulse sequences consisting of bit-flips and/or phase-flips. We examine the effectiveness of the two typical sequences: bb sequence consisting of only bit-flips, and bp sequence consisting of both bit- and phase-flips. It is shown that the effectiven…
We propose and discuss two conjectures on the nature of information leaks (decoherence) for quantum computers. These conjectures, if (or when) they hold, are damaging for quantum error-correction as required by fault-tolerant quantum computation. The first conjecture asserts that information leaks for a pair of substantially entangled qubits are themselves substantially positively correlated. The second conjecture asserts that in a noisy quantum computer with highly entangled qubits there will be a strong effect of error synchronization. We present more general conjectures for arbitrary noisy …
In order to witness multipartite correlations beyond pairwise entanglement, spin-squeezing parameters are analytically calculated for a spin ensemble in a collective initial state under three different decoherence channels. It is shown that, in analogy to pairwise entanglement, the spin squeezing described by different parameters can suddenly become zero at different vanishing times. This finding shows the general occurrence of sudden vanishing phenomena of quantum correlations in many-body systems, which here is referred to as spin-squeezing sudden death (SSSD). It is shown that the SSSD usua…
We experimentally perform the simulation of open quantum dynamics in single-qudit systems. Using a spatial light modulator as a dissipative optical device, we implement dissipative-dynamical maps onto qudits encoded in the transverse momentum of spontaneous parametric down-converted photon pairs. We show a well-controlled technique to prepare entangled qudits states as well as to implement dissipative local measurements; the latter realize two specific dynamics: dephasing and amplitude damping. Our work represents a new analogy-dynamical experiment for simulating an open quantum system.
We explore a strategy for protecting the evolution of a qubit against the effects of environmental noise based on the application of controlled time-dependent perturbations. In the case of a purely decohering coupling, an explicit sequence of control operations is designed, able to average out the decoherence of the qubit with high efficiency. We argue that, in principle, the effects of arbitrary qubit-environment interactions can be removed through suitable decoupling perturbations acting on the system dynamics over time scales comparable to the correlation time of the environment.
We analyse dissipation in quantum computation and its destructive impact on efficiency of quantum algorithms. Using a general model of decoherence, we study the time evolution of a quantum register of arbitrary length coupled with an environment of arbitrary coherence length. We discuss relations between decoherence and computational complexity and show that the quantum factorization algorithm must be modified in order to be regarded as efficient and realistic.
A quantum version of the Minority game for an arbitrary number of agents is considered. It is known that when the number of agents is odd, quantizing the game produces no advantage to the players, but for an even number of agents new Nash equilibria appear that have no classical analogue and have improved payoffs. We study the effect on the Nash equilibrium payoff of various forms of decoherence. As the number of players increases the multipartite GHZ state becomes increasingly fragile, as indicated by the smaller error probability required to reduce the Nash equilibrium payoff to the classica…
We analyze decoherence and objectivization processes in spin-spin models for arbitrary spins. We first derive the most general analytic form of the decoherence factor in the measurement limit, where the interaction Hamiltonian dominates the rest. We then analyze thermal environments and derive exact, analytic formulas for both the decoherence factor and the state fidelity of post-interaction environment states. This allows to analyze the objectivization process of the state of the central spin during the interaction. We do so using, so called, Spectrum Broadcast Structures (SBS), which are spe…
We study the competing effects of simultaneous Markovian and non-Markovian decoherence mechanisms acting on a single spin. We show the existence of a threshold in the relative strength of such mechanisms above which the spin dynamics becomes fully Markovian, as revealed by the use of several non-Markovianity measures. We identify a measure-dependent nested structure of such thresholds, hinting at a causality relationship amongst the various non-Markovianity witnesses used in our analysis. Our considerations are then used to argue the unavoidably non-Markovian evolution of a single-electron qua…
The mechanism of the transition of a dynamical system from quantum to classical mechanics is one of the remaining challenges of quantum theory. Currently, it is considered to occur via decoherence caused by entanglement and/or stochastic interaction with a quantum environment. Here we prove that, in the absence of de-phasing environmental interaction, the asymptotic spatial wave function of any quantum system, propagating over distances and times large on an atomic scale but still microscopic, and subject to arbitrary deterministic fields, becomes proportional to the initial momentum wave func…
We propose a many-qubit network with cavity QED by encoding qubits in decoherence-free subspace, based on which we can implement many-logic-qubit conditional gates by means of cavity assisted interaction with single-photon pulses. Our scheme could not only resist collective dephasing errors, but also much reduce the implementational steps compared to conventional methods doing the same job, and we can also complete communications between two arbitrary nodes. We show the details by implementing a three-logic-qubit Toffoli gate, and explore the experimental feasibility and challenge based on cur…
We show that multidimensional Zeno effect combined with non-holonomic control allows to efficiently protect quantum systems from decoherence by a method similar to classical coding. Contrary to the conventional approach, our method is applicable to arbitrary error-inducing Hamiltonians and general quantum systems. We also propose algorithms of finding encoding that approaches the Hamming upper bound along with methods of practical realizations of the encodings. Two new codes protecting 2 information qubits out of 7 and 4 information qubits out of 9 against a single error with arbitrarily small…
The theory of decoherence attempts to explain the emergent classical behaviour of a quantum system interacting with its quantum environment. In order to formalize this mechanism we introduce the idea that the information preserved in an open quantum evolution (or channel) can be characterized in terms of observables of the initial system. We use this approach to show that information which is broadcast into many parts of the environment can be encoded in a single observable. This supports a model of decoherence where the pointer observable can be an arbitrary positive operator-valued measure (…
Universal Protection of Quantum States from Decoherence
Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica(意大利国家计量研究所);Politecnico di Torino(都灵理工大学);Università degli Studi di Torino(都灵大学);Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare(意大利国家核物理研究所)
Geometric quantum discord is a well-defined measure of quantum correlation if Schatten 1-norm (trace norm) is adopted as a distance measure. Here, we analytically investigate the dynamical behavior of the 1-norm geometric quantum discord under the effect of decoherence. By starting from arbitrary Bell-diagonal mixed states under Markovian local noise, we provide the decays of the quantum correlation as a function of the decoherence parameters. In particular, we show that the 1-norm geometric discord exhibits the possibility of double sudden changes and freezing behavior during its evolution. F…
For the case of phase damping (pure decoherence) we investigate the extent to which environmental traits are imprinted on an open quantum system. The dynamics is described using the quantum channel approach. We study what the knowledge of the channel may reveal about the nature of its underlying dynamics and, conversely, what the dynamics tells us about how to consistently model the environment. We find that for a Markov phase-damping channel, that is, a channel compatible with a time-continuous Markovian evolution, the environment may adequately be represented by a mixture of only a few coher…
We study, in the paradigm of open quantum systems, the dynamics of quantum coherence of a static polarizable two-level atom which is coupled with a thermal bath of fluctuating electromagnetic field in the absence and presence of boundaries. The purpose is to find the conditions under which the decoherence can be inhibited effectively. We find that without boundaries, quantum coherence of the two-level atom inevitably decreases due to the effect of thermal bath. However, the quantum decoherence, in the presence of a boundary, could be effectively inhibited when the atom is transversely polariza…