We present a decoherence-based interpretation for the quantum Zeno effect (QZE) where measurements are dynamically treated as dispersive couplings of the measured system to the apparatus, rather than the von Neumann's projections. It is found that the explicit dependence of the survival probability on the decoherence time quantitatively distinguishes this dynamic QZE from the usual one based on projection measurements. By revisiting the cavity-QED experiment of the QZE [J. Bernu, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett, 101, 180402 (2008)], we suggest an alternative scheme to verify our theoretical consideration that frequent measurements slow down the increase of photon number inside a microcavity due to the nondemolition couplings with the atoms in large detuning.
The control of thermal decoherence via dynamical decoupling and via the quantum Zeno effect (Zeno control) is investigated for a model of trapped ion, where the dynamics of two low lying hyperfine states undergoes decoherence due to the thermal interaction with an excited state. Dynamical decoupling is a procedure that consists in periodically driving the excited state, while the Zeno control consists in frequently measuring it. When the control frequency is high enough, decoherence is shown to be suppressed. Otherwise, both controls may accelerate decoherence.
The measurements in the optical test of quantum Zeno effect [Itano et al. Phys. Rev. A\underbar{41} (1990) 2295) are analyzed using the environment-induced decoherence theory, where the spontaneous emission lifetime of the relevant level emerges as the 'decoherence time'. The implication of this finite decoherence time in setting a fundamental limit on the realizability of the condition of continuous measurements is investigated in detail.
Decay parameter of coherence and population inversion are calculated from the master equation of a two level atom tunneling through a squeezed vacuum. Using those parameters, the timescales for decoherence and zeno effect are calculated in the weak measurement scheme. By comparing those timescales, a certain condition has been found for sustainable coherent dynamics.
We propose a selfconsistent quantum mechanical approach to study the dynamics of a two-level system subject to random time evolution. This randomness gives rise to competing effects between dissipative and non-dissipative decoherence with a consequent slow down of the atomic decay rate.
The giant atom system is a new paradigm in quantum optics, in which the traditional dipole approximation is not available. In this paper, we construct an artificial giant atom model by coupling a superconducting circuits to a transmission line by two coupling points. In the ultrastrong coupling regime, we show that the Lamb shift of the giant atom, which is induced by the non-negligible counter-rotating atom-waveguide coupling term, will modify its dissipation process. Furthermore, we investigate quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effect where the size of the giant atom serves as a sensitive controlle…
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…
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 experiment of Etano et al which demonstrated the quantum Zeno effect (QZE) in an optical experiment was explained by Frerichs and Schenzle without invoking the wave function collapse. In this report it is proposed that the collapse does occur, and it can be explained by the `environment induced decoherence' theory. The environment here consists of the completely quantized field vacuum modes. The spontaneous emission life time of the atom sets a fundamental limit on the requirement of `continuous measurements' for QZE. This limit turns out to be related to the time-energy uncertainty relati…
We propose an experiment with two coupled microwave cavities and a "tunneling" photon observed by the passage of Rydberg atoms. We model the coupled cavities as in Ref. \cite{art1} and include dissipative effects as well as limited detection efficiency. We also consider realistic finite atom-field interaction times and provide for a simple analytical expression for the photon "tunneling" probability including all these effects. We show that for sufficiently small dissipation constants the effect can be observed with current experimental facilities.
Recent theoretical and experimental papers support the prevailing opinion that large warm systems will rapidly lose quantum coherence, and that classical properties will emerge. This rapid loss of coherence would naturally be expected to block any critical role for quantum theory in explaining the interaction between our conscious experiences and the physical activities of our brains. However, there is a quantum theory of mind in which the efficacy of mental effort is not affected by decoherence effects. In this theory the effects of mental action on brain activity is achieved by a Quantum Zen…
In solid-state circuit QED system, we extend the previous study of generating and stabilizing two-qubit Bell state [Phys. Rev. A 82, 032335 (2010)], to three-qubit GHZ state. In dispersive regime, we employ the homodyne joint readout for multiple qubits to infer the state for further processing, and in particular use it to stabilize the state directly by means of an alternate-flip-interrupted Zeno (AFIZ) scheme. Moreover, the state-of-the-art feedback action based on the filtered current enables not only a deterministic generation of the pre-GHZ state in the initial stage, but also a fast reco…
Projective measurements are an essential element of quantum mechanics. In most cases, they cause an irreversible change of the quantum system on which they act. However, measurements can also be used to stabilize quantum states from decay processes, which is known as the quantum Zeno effect (QZE). Here, we demonstrate this effect for the case of a superposition state of a nuclear spin qubit, using an ancilla to perform the measurement. As a result, the quantum state of the qubit is protected against dephasing without relying on an ensemble nature of NMR experiments. We also propose a scheme to…
We demonstrate through exact solutions that a spin bath leads to stronger (faster) dephasing of a qubit than a bosonic bath with identical bath-coupling spectrum. This difference is due to the spin-bath "dressing" by the coupling. Consequently, the quantum statistics of the bath strongly affects the pulse sequences required to dynamically decouple the qubit from its bath.
Decoherence time has been calculated for an optical ion trap of Be atoms in a bistable potential model. Comparison has been made between decoherence time and Zeno time for double well potential as a special case. Zeno time is considered as a lower limit of decoherence time for sustainable quantum coherence. Equality of the respective timescales provides a certain transitional temperature, below which decoherence can be asymptotically minimized.
In this work we study an ultrastrong coupled qubit-cavity system subjected to slow repeated measurements. We demonstrate that even under a few imperfect measurements it is possible to detect transitions of the qubit from its free ground state to the excited state. The excitation probability grows exponentially fast in analogy with the quantum anti-Zeno effect. The dynamics and physics described in this paper is accessible to current superconducting circuit technology.
We study the measurement process by treating classical detectors entirely quantum mechanically. As a generic model we use a point-contact detector coupled to an electron in a quantum dot and tunneling into the continuum. Transition to the classical description and the mechanism of decoherence are investigated. We concentrate on the influence of the measurement on the electron decay rate to the continuum. We demonstrate that the Zeno (or the anti-Zeno) effect requires a nonuniform density of states in the continuum. In this case we show that the anti-Zeno effect relates only to the average deca…
New feasible cavity QED experiment is proposed to analyse reversible quantum decoherence in consequence of quantum complementarity and entanglement. Utilizing the phase selective manipulations with enviroment, it is demonstrated how the complementarity particularly induces a preservation of visibility, whereas quantum decoherence is more progressive due to pronounced entanglement between system and enviroment. This effect can be directly observed using the proposed cavity QED measurements.
We study the Zeno and anti-Zeno effects in a superconducting qubit interacting strongly and ultrastrongly with a microwave resonator. Using a model of a frequently measured two-level system interacting with a quantized mode, we show different behaviors and total control of the Zeno times depending on whether the rotating-wave approximation can be applied in the Jaynes-Cummings model, or not. We exemplify showing the strong dependence of our results with the properties of the initial field states and suggest applications for quantum tomography.
We study decoherence in a circuit QED system consisting of a charge qubit and two superconducting transmission line resonators (TLRs). We show that in the dispersive regime of the circuit QED system one TLR can be used as an auxiliary subsystem to realize decoherence-free quantum dynamics of the bipartite target system consisting of the charge qubit and the other TLR conditioned on the auxiliary TLR initially being a proper number state. Our study gives new insight into control and manipulation of decoherence in quantum systems.
The suppression of spin-exchange relaxation in dense alkali-metal vapors discovered in 1973 and governing modern atomic magnetometers is here reformulated in terms of quantum measurement theory and the quantum Zeno effect. This provides a new perspective of understanding decoherence in spin-polarized atomic vapors.
We propose schemes that are efficient when each pair of qubits undergoes some imperfect collective decoherence with different baths. In the proposed scheme, each pair of qubits is first encoded in a decoherence-free subspace composed of two qubits. Leakage out of the encoding space generated by the imperfection is reduced by the quantum Zeno effect. Phase errors in the encoded bits generated by the imperfection are reduced by concatenation of the decoherence-free subspace with either a three-qubit quantum error correcting code that corrects only phase errors or a two-qubit quantum error detect…
We consider a wave packet of a charged particle passing through a cavity filled with photons at temperature T and investigate its localization and interference properties. It is shown that the wave packet becomes localized and the interference disappears with an exponential speed after a sufficiently long path through the cavity.
The quantum Zeno effect is recast in terms of an adiabatic theorem when the measurement is described as the dynamical coupling to another quantum system that plays the role of apparatus. A few significant examples are proposed and their practical relevance discussed. We also focus on decoherence-free subspaces.
We unify the quantum Zeno effect (QZE) and the "bang-bang" (BB) decoupling method for suppressing decoherence in open quantum systems: in both cases strong coupling to an external system or apparatus induces a dynamical superselection rule that partitions the open system's Hilbert space into quantum Zeno subspaces. Our unification makes use of von Neumann's ergodic theorem and avoids making any of the symmetry assumptions usually made in discussions of BB. Thus we are able to generalize BB to arbitrary fast and strong pulse sequences, requiring no symmetry, and to show the existence of two alt…
While quantum probes surely feel gravity, no source of gravity has been prepared in a delocalized quantum state yet. Two basic questions need to be addressed: how to delocalize a mass sufficiently large to generate detectable gravity; and, once that state has been prepared, how to fight localization by decoherence. We propose to fight decoherence by freezing the source in the desired state through the Zeno effect. Successful implementation can be verified by scattering a probe in the effective potential generated by the source. Besides putting forward the idea, we provide an estimation of the …
The quantum Zeno evolution of a quantum system takes place in a proper subspace of the total Hilbert space. The physical and mathematical features of the "Zeno subspaces" depend on the measuring apparatus: when this is included in the quantum description, the Zeno effect becomes a mere consequence of the dynamics and, remarkably, can be cast in terms of an adiabatic theorem, with a dynamical superselection rule. We look at several examples and focus on quantum computation and decoherence-free subspaces.
We investigate two techniques for controlling decoherence, focusing on the crucial role played by the environmental spectrum. We show how environments with different spectra lead to very different dynamical behaviours. Our study clearly proves that such differences must be taken into account when designing decoherence control schemes. The two techniques we consider are reservoir engineering and quantum-Zeno control. We focus on a quantum harmonic oscillator initially prepared in a nonclassical state and derive analytically its non-Markovian dynamics in presence of different bosonic thermal env…
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…
It is accepted that among the ways through which a quantum phenomenon decoheres and becomes a classical one is what is termed in the literature the Zeno effect. This effect, named after the ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea (born about 485 B.C), were used in 1977 to analytically predict that an initial quantum state may be preserved in time by merely repeating a large number of times, in a finite total time, the experiment of checking its state. Since then this effect has been experimentally validated and has become an established physical fact. It has been argued by Simonius that the Zen…
In this paper we investigate the occurrence of the Zeno and anti-Zeno effects for quantum Brownian motion. We single out the parameters of both the system and the reservoir governing the crossover between Zeno and anti-Zeno dynamics. We demonstrate that, for high reservoir temperatures, the short time behaviour of environment induced decoherence is the ultimate responsible for the occurrence of either the Zeno or the anti-Zeno effect. Finally we suggest a way to manipulate the decay rate of the system and to observe a controlled continuous passage from decay suppression to decay acceleration u…
The time evolution of some quantum states can be slowed down or even stopped under frequent measurements. This is the usual quantum Zeno effect. Here, we report an operator quantum Zeno effect, in which the evolution of some physical observables is slowed down through measurements even though the quantum state changes randomly with time. Based on the operator quantum Zeno effect, we show how we can protect quantum information from decoherence with two-qubit measurements, realizable with noisy two-qubit interactions.
In this paper, we first demonstrate how to realize quantum state transferring (QST) from one atom to another based on quantum Zeno dynamics. Then, the QST protocol is generalized to realize the quantum state swapping (QSS) between two arbitrary atoms with the help of a third one. Furthermore, we also consider the QSS within a quantum network. The influence of decoherence is analyzed by numerical calculation. The results demonstrate that the protocols are robust against cavity decay.
We propose a new approach to the implementation of quantum gates in which decoherence during the gate operations is strongly reduced. This is achieved by making use of an environment induced quantum Zeno effect that confines the dynamics effectively to a decoherence-free subspace.
The different methods of reducing decoherence in quantum devices are discussed from the unified point of view based on the energy conservation principle and the concept of forbidden transitions. Minimal decoherence model, "bang-bang" techniques, Zeno effect and decoherence-free subspaces and subsystems are studied as particular examples.
Hybrid quantum systems based on spin ensembles coupled to superconducting microwave cavities are promising candidates for robust experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) and for future technologies employing quantum mechanical effects. Currently the main source of decoherence in these systems is inho- mogeneous spin broadening, which limits their performance for the coherent transfer and storage of quantum information. Here we study the dynamics of a superconducting cavity strongly coupled to an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. We experimentally observe for the first…
We demonstrate that repeated measurements in disordered systems can induce quantum anti-Zeno effect under certain condition to enhance quantum transport. The enhancement of energy transfer is really exhibited with a simple model under repeated measurements. The optimal measurement interval for the anti-Zeno effect and the maximal efficiency of energy transfer are specified in terms of the relevant physical parameters. Since the environment acts as frequent measurements on the system, the decoherence-induced energy transfer, which has been discussed recently for photosynthetic complexes, may be…
We study the dynamics of the populations of a model molecule endowed with two sets of rotational levels of different parity, whose ground levels are energy degenerate and coupled by a constant interaction. The relaxation rate from one set of levels to the other one has an interesting dependence on the average collision frequency of the molecules in the gas. This is interpreted as a quantum Zeno effect due to the decoherence effects provoked by the molecular collisions.
We present a theoretical study of a superconducting charge qubit dispersively coupled to a transmission line resonator. Starting from a master equation description of this coupled system and using a polaron transformation, we obtain an exact effective master equation for the qubit. We then use quantum trajectory theory to investigate the measurement of the qubit by continuous homodyne measurement of the resonator out-field. Using the same porlaron transformation, a stochastic master equation for the conditional state of the qubit is obtained. From this result, various definitions of the measur…
A cavity QED implementation of the non-adiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces is proposed with nitrogen-vacancy centers coupled commonly to the whispering-gallery mode of a microsphere cavity, where a universal set of quantum gates can be realized on the qubits. In our implementation, with the assistant of the appropriate driving fields, the quantum evolution is insensitive to the cavity field state, which is only virtually excited. The implemented non-adiabatic holonomies, utilizing optical transitions in the Λ type of three-level configuration of the nitrogen-v…
We implement a simple feedback mechanism on a two-mode cavity QED system to preserve the Zeeman coherence of a ground state superposition that generates quantum beats on the second-order correlation function. Our investigation includes theoretical and experimental studies that show how to prevent a shift away from the Larmor frequency and associated decoherence caused by Rayleigh scattering. The protocol consists of turning off the drive of the system after the detection of a first photon and letting it evolve in the dark. Turning the drive back on after a pre-set time reveals a phase accumula…
We introduce an extended Dicke model with controllable long-range atom-atom interaction to simulate topologically ordered states and achieve decoherence-protected qubits. We illustrate our idea in an experimentally feasible circuit quantum electrodynamics scenario. Due to the intrinsic competition with the atom-field coupling strength, we first demonstrate that this atom-atom interaction can exhibit a novel topological quantum interference effect arising from the instanton and anti-instanton tunneling paths. As a consequence, this proposed model only with a few odd-number of atoms has a two-fo…
We present a fully analytical solution of the dynamics of two strongly-driven atoms resonantly coupled to a dissipative cavity field mode. We show that an initial atom-atom entanglement cannot be increased. In fact, the atomic Hilbert space divides into two subspaces, one of which is decoherence free so that the initial atomic entanglement remains available for applications, even in presence of a low enough atomic decay rate. In the other subspace a measure of entanglement, decoherence, and also purity, are described by a similar functional behavior that can be monitored by joint atomic measur…
We investigate the phenomenon of sudden transition between classical and quantum decoherence in the study of quantum discord for a dissipative cavity QED system, which consists of two noninteracting two-level atoms, each trapped in a dissipative cavity. It is found that the quantum discord between two atoms, which are prepared initially in the X-type quantum states, is not destroyed by the dissipation of the cavities for a finite time interval and the stationary quantum discord can arise in the interaction of atoms with cavities as the time approach to infinite. The transition time is sensitiv…
The Rabi Hamiltonian describes the interaction between a two-level atom and a single mode of the quantized electromagnetic field. When the system is subject to the Markovian atomic dephasing reservoir, the anti-rotating term leads to the photon generation from vacuum. In the presence of Markovian damping reservoirs, the asymptotic mean photon number is higher than the thermal photon number expected in the absence of the anti-rotating term. We obtain approximate analytical expressions in the asymptotic regime for the photon creation rate in the pure dephasing case and the mean photon number and…
The interaction of quantum emitters with one-dimensional photon-like reservoirs induces strong and long-range dissipative couplings that give rise to the emergence of so-called Decoherence Free Subspaces (DFS) which are decoupled from dissipation. When introducing weak perturbations on the emitters, e.g., driving, the strong collective dissipation enforces an effective coherent evolution within the DFS. In this work, we show explicitly how by introducing single-site resolved drivings, we can use the effective dynamics within the DFS to design a universal set of one and two-qubit gates within t…
Decoherence processes in quantum electrodynamics due to neglecting either the radiation [L. Landau, Z. Phys. 45, 430 (1927)] or the charged matter [N. Bohr and L. Rosenfeld, K. danske vidensk. Selsk, Math.-Fys. Medd. XII, 8 (1933)] have been studied from the dawn of the theory. However what happens in between, when a part of the radiation may be observed, as is the case in many real-life situations, has not been analyzed yet. We present such an analysis for a non-relativistic, point-like charge and thermal radiation. In the dipole approximation, we solve the dynamics and show that there is a r…
A novel scheme is proposed for dissipative generation of maximally entanglement between two Rydberg atoms in the context of cavity QED. The spontaneous emission of atoms combined with quantum Zeno dynamics and Rydberg antiblockade guarantees a unique steady solution of the master equation of system, which just corresponds to the antisymmetric Bell state $|S\rangle$. The convergence rate is accelerated by the ground-state blockade mechanism of Rydberg atoms. Meanwhile the effect of cavity decay is suppressed by the Zeno requirement, leading to a steady-state fidelity about $90\%$ as the single-…
We combine the collisional picture for open system dynamics and the control of the rate of decoherence provided by the quantum (anti-)Zeno effect to illustrate the temporal unfolding of the redundant encoding of information into a multipartite environment that is at the basis of Quantum Darwinism, and to control it. The rate at which such encoding occurs can be enhanced or suppressed by tuning the dynamical conditions of system-environment interaction in a suitable and remarkably simple manner. This would help the design of a new generation of quantum experiments addressing the elusive phenome…
We investigate the dynamics of two quantum mechanical oscillator system-bath toy models obtained by truncating to zero spatial dimensions linearized gravity coupled to a massive scalar field and scalar QED. The scalar-gravity toy model maps onto the phase damped oscillator, while the scalar QED toy model approximately maps onto an oscillator system subject to two-photon damping. The toy models provide potentially useful insights into solving for open system quantum dynamics relevant to the full scalar QED and weak gravitational field systems, in particular operational probes of the decoherence…
We consider an ensemble of atoms with $Λ$-type level structure trapped in a single-mode cavity, and propose a geometric scheme of coherent manipulation of quantum states on the subspace of zero-energy states within the quantum Zeno subspace of the system. We find that the particular subspace inherits the decoherence-free nature of the quantum Zeno subspace and features a symmetry-protected degeneracy, fulfilling all the conditions for a universal scheme of arbitrary unitary operations on it.
In metrological tasks, employing entanglement can quantitatively improve the precision of parameter estimation. However, susceptibility of the entanglement to decoherence fades this capability in the realistic metrology and limits ultimate quantum improvement. One of the most destructive decoherence-type noise is uncorrelated Markovian noise which commutes with the parameter-encoding Hamiltonian and is modelled as a semigroup dynamics, for which the quantum improvement is constrained to a constant factor. It has been shown [Phys. Rev. Lett. \textbf{109}, 233601 (2012)] that when the noisy time…
We consider a qubit interacting with its environment and continuously monitored by a detector represented by a point contact. Bloch-type equations describing the entire system of the qubit, the environment and the detector are derived. Using these equations we evaluate the detector current and its noise spectrum in terms of the decoherence and relaxation rates of the qubit. Simple expressions are obtained that show how these quantities can be accurately measured. We demonstrate that due to interaction with the environment, the measurement can never localize a qubit even for infinite decoherenc…
We propose an experimental setup, feasible with present day technology, involving two highquality- factor cavities, one Ramsey zone and a two-level atom which interacts with them. The dynamics in the cavities is modeled by a dissipative dispersive Jaynes-Cummings model. Analytical expresions for the evolution superoperator in each part of the proposed setup and for the concurrence between the atom and the first cavity are given, and the pairwise entanglement of the subsystems is calculated numerically. We consider initial separable states given by the tensor product of a superposition of the t…
The quantum Zeno effect arises due to frequent observation. That implies the existence of some experimenter and its interaction with the system. In this contribution, we examine what happens for a closed system if one considers a quantum Zeno type of question, namely: "what is the probability of a system, remaining always in a particular subspace". This has implications to the arrival time problem that is also discussed. We employ the decoherent histories approach to quantum theory, as this is the better developed formulation of closed system quantum mechanics, and in particular, dealing with …
We consider the problem of quantum decoherence in cavity QED devices and investigate the possibility to preserve a Schroedinger cat as a coherent superposition along the time.
A new mechanism is proposed for dissipatively preparing maximal Bell entangled state of two atoms in an optical cavity. This scheme integrates the spontaneous emission, the light shift of atoms in the presence of dispersive microwave field, and the quantum Zeno dynamics induced by continuous coupling, to obtain a unique steady state irrespective of initial state. Even for a large cavity decay, a high-fidelity entangled state is achievable at a short convergence time, since the occupation of cavity mode is inhibited by the Zeno requirement. Therefore, a low single-atom cooperativity $C=g^2/(κγ)…
We consider inter-atomic forces due to resonant dipole-dipole interactions within a dimer of highly excited Rydberg atoms, embedded in an ultra-cold gas. These forces rely on a coherent superposition of two-atom electronic states, which is destroyed by continuous monitoring of the dimer state through a detection scheme utilizing controllable interactions with the background gas atoms. We show that this intrinsic decoherence of the molecular energy surface can gradually deteriorate a repulsive dimer state, causing a mixing of attractive and repulsive character. For sufficiently strong decoheren…
The quantum Zeno effect is the suppression of Hamiltonian evolution by repeated observation, resulting in the pinning of the state to an eigenstate of the measurement observable. Using measurement only, control of the state can be achieved if the observable is slowly varied such that the state tracks the now time-dependent eigenstate. We demonstrate this using a circuit-QED readout technique that couples to a dynamically controllable observable of a qubit. Continuous monitoring of the measurement record allows us to detect an escape from the eigenstate, thus serving as a built-in form of error…
