We study the dynamics of two initially correlated qubits coupled to their own separate spin baths modeled by a XY spin chain and find the explicit expression of the quantum discord for the system. A sudden transition is found to exist between classical and quantum decoherence by choosing certain initial states. We show that the sudden transition happens near the critical point, which provides a new way to characterize the quantum phase transition. Furthermore, we propose a scheme to prolong the transition time of the quantum discord by applying the bang-bang pulses.
Entanglement sudden death in spatially separated two-mode Gaussian states coupled to local thermal and squeezed thermal baths is studied by mapping the problem to that of the quantum-to-classical transition. Using Simon's criterion concerning the characterisation of classicality in Gaussian states, the time to ESD is calculated by analysing the covariance matrices of the system. The results for the two-mode system at T=0 and T>0 for the two types of bath states are generalised to $n$-modes, and are shown to be similar in nature to the results for the general discrete $n$-qubit system.
We present a detailed study of the entanglement dynamics of a two-qubit system coupled to independent non-Markovian environments, employing hierarchy equations. This recently developed theoretical treatment can conveniently solve non-Markovian problems and take into consideration the correlation between the system and bath in an initial state. We concentrate on calculating the death and rebirth time points of the entanglement to obtain a general view of the concurrence curve and explore the behavior of entanglement dynamics with respect to the coupling strength, the characteristic frequency of…
Quantum entanglement, the essential resource for quantum information processing, has rich dynamics under different environments. Probing different entanglement dynamics typically requires exquisite control of complicated system-environment coupling in real experimental systems. Here, by a simple control of the effective solid-state spin bath in a diamond sample, we observe rich entanglement dynamics, including the conventional asymptotic decay as well as the entanglement sudden death, a term coined for the phenomenon of complete disappearance of entanglement after a short finite time interval.…
We present a detailed study of the dynamics of correlations in non-Markovian environments, applying the hierarchy equations approach. This theoretical treatment is able to take the system-bath interaction into consideration carefully. It is shown that crosses and sudden changes of classical and quantum correlations can happen if we gradually reduce the strength of the interactions between qubits. For some special initial states, sudden transitions between classical and quantum correlations even occur.
We study the relation between the sudden death and revival of the entanglement of two qubits in a common squeezed reservoir, and the normal decoherence, by getting closer to the Decoherence Free Subspace and calculating the effect on the death and revival times.
We investigate theoretically a refrigerator based on a two-level system (TLS) coupled alternately to two different heat baths. Modulation of the coupling is achieved by tuning the level spacing of the TLS. We find that the TLS, which avoids quantum coherences, creates finite cooling power for one of the baths in sudden cycles, i.e. acts as a refrigerator even in the limit of infinite operation frequency. By contrast, the cycles that create quantum coherence in the sudden expansions and compressions lead to heating of both the baths. We propose a driving method that avoids creating coherence an…
We propose a scheme to characterize the non-Markovian dynamics and quantify the non-Markovianity via the non-classicality measured by the negativity of quantumness. By considering a qubit in contact with a critical Ising spin bath and introducing an ancilla, we show that revivals of negativity of quantumness indicate the non-Markovian dynamics. Furthermore, a normalized measure of non-Markovianity based on the negativity of quantumness is introduced and the influences of bath criticality, bath temperature and bath size on the non-Markovianity are discussed. It is shown that, at the critical po…
We demonstrate an exact mapping of a class of models of two interacting qubits in thermal reservoirs to two separate spin-bath problems. Based on this mapping, exact numerical simulations of the qubits dynamics can be performed, beyond the weak system-bath coupling limit. Given the time evolution of the system, we study, in a numerically exact way, the dynamics of entanglement between pair of qubits immersed in boson thermal baths, showing a rich phenomenology, including an intermediate oscillatory behavior, the entanglement sudden birth, sudden death, and revival. We find that stationary enta…
The phenomenon of entanglement sudden death (ESD) in finite dimensional composite open systems is described here for both bi-partite as well as multipartite cases, where individual subsystems undergo Lindblad type heat bath evolution. ESD is found to be generic for non-zero temperature of the bath. At T=0, one-sided action of the heat bath on pure entangled states of two qubits does not show ESD.
Dynamical decoupling (DD) is a powerful method for controlling arbitrary open quantum systems. In quantum spin control, DD generally involves a sequence of timed spin flips ($π$ rotations) arranged to average out or selectively enhance coupling to the environment. Experimentally, errors in the spin flips are inevitably introduced, motivating efforts to optimise error-robust DD. Here we invert this paradigm: by introducing particular control "errors" in standard DD, namely a small constant deviation from perfect $π$ rotations (pulse adjustments), we show we obtain protocols that retain the adva…
We study, analytically as well as numerically, the dynamics that arises from the interaction of a polar polarizable rigid rotor with single unipolar electromagnetic pulses of varying length, $Δτ$, with respect to the rotational period of the rotor, $τ_r$. In the sudden, non-adiabatic limit, $Δτ\ll τ_r$, we derive analytic expressions for the rotor's wavefunctions, kinetic energies, and field-free evolution of orientation and alignment. We verify the analytic results by solving the corresponding time-dependent Schrödinger equation numerically and extend the temporal range of the interactions co…
We study the suppression of qubit dephasing through Uhrig dynamical decoupling (UDD) in nontrivial environments modeled within the spin-boson formalism. In particular, we address the case of (i) a qubit coupled to a bosonic bath with power-law spectral density, and (ii) a qubit coupled to a single harmonic oscillator that dissipates energy into a bosonic bath, which embodies an example of a structured bath for the qubit. We then model the influence of random time jitter in the UDD protocol by sorting pulse-application times from Gaussian distributions centered at appropriate values dictated by…
Quantum Fisher information characterizes the phase sensitivity of qubits in the spin-boson model with a finite bandwidth spectrum. In contrast with Markovian reservoirs, the quantum Fisher information will flow from the environments to qubits after some times if the bath parameter $s$ is larger than a critical value which is related to temperatures. The sudden change behavior will happen during the evolution of the quantum Fisher information of the maximal entanglement state in the non-Markovian environments. The sudden change times can be varied with the change of the bath parameter $s$. For …
We study the effectiveness of multi pulse control to suppress the degradation of entanglement. Based on a linearly interacting spin-boson model, we show that the multi pulse application recovers the decay of concurrence when an entangled pair of spins interacts with a reservoir that has the non-Markovian nature. We present the effectiveness of multi pulse control for both the common bath case and the individual bath case.
We consider the coherent control of a quantum bit by the use of short pulses with finite duration τ_p. By shaping the pulse, we perturbatively decouple the dynamics of the bath from the dynamics of the quantum bit during the pulse. Such shaped pulses provide single quantum bit gates robust against decoherence which are useful for quantum information processing. We extend previous results in two ways: (i) we treat frequency modulated pulses and (ii) we pass from time-independent baths to analytically time-dependent baths. First and second order solutions for π- and π/2-pulses are presented. The…
The origin of disentanglement for two specific sub-classes of $X$-states namely maximally nonlocal mixed states (MNMSs) and maximally entangled mixed states (MEMSs) is investigated analytically for a physical system consisting of two spatially separated qubits interacting with a common vacuum bath. The phenomena of entanglement sudden death (ESD) and the entanglement sudden birth (ESB) are observed, but the characteristics of ESD and ESB are found to be different for the case of two photon coherence and single photon coherence states. The role played by initial coherence for the underlying ent…
In the framework of nuclear magnetic resonance, we consider the general problem of the coherent control of a spin coupled to a bath by means of composite or continuous pulses of duration $τ_\mathrm{p}$. We show explicity that it is possible to design the pulse in order to achieve a decoupling of the spin from the bath up to the third order in $τ_\mathrm{p}$. The evolution of the system is separated in the evolution of the spin under the action of the pulse and of the bath times correction terms. We derive the correction terms for a general time dependent axis of rotation and for a general coup…
Analytic solutions are developed for two-state systems (e.g. qubits) strongly perturbed by a series of rapidly changing pulses, called `kicks'. The evolution matrix may be expressed as a time ordered product of evolution matrices for single kicks. Single, double, and triple kicks are explicitly considered, and the onset of observability of time ordering is examined. The effects of different order of kicks on the dynamics of the system are studied and compared with effects of time ordering in general. To determine the range of validity of this approach, the effect of using pulses of finite widt…
We examine the influence of environmental interactions on simple quantum systems by obtaining the exact reduced dynamics of a qubit coupled to a one-dimensional spin bath. In contrast to previous studies, both the qubit-bath coupling and the nearest neighbor intrabath couplings are taken as the spin-flip XX-type. We first study the Rabi oscillations of a single qubit with the spin bath prepared in a spin coherent state, finding that nonresonance and finite intrabath interactions have significant effects on the qubit dynamics. Next, we discuss the bath-induced decoherence of the qubit when the …
Precise and efficient control of quantum systems is essential to perform quantum information processing tasks. In terms of adiabatic speedup via leakage elimination operator approach, for a closed system, the ideal pulse control conditions have been theoretically derived by P-Q partitioning technique. However, it is a challenge to design the corresponding control pulses for an open system, which requires to tackle noisy environments. In this paper, we apply the stochastic search procedures to an open qutrit system and successfully obtain the optimal control pulses for significant adiabatic spe…
The effect of quantum "Bang-Bang" control on entangled states is studied. A system of two initially entangled qubits interacting with a bosonic environment is considered. The interaction induces a loss of the initial entanglement of the two qubits and for specific initial states it causes "entanglement sudden death". A pulsed control of both qubits leads to the preservation of the entanglement. It is also shown that a single pulse performed after the sudden death time induces an entanglement revival in the two qubits system.
We study the recently discovered phenomena of sudden death of entanglement for a system of two qubits, each of them independently longitudinally damped by a reservoir and subjected to a continuous driving. We show that driving produces, in the interaction picture, an effective bath that has elements amounting to various extra sources of noise (transverse, thermal squeezed, thermal longitudinal). As a result, the time of sudden death decreases due to driving, which we verify as well by direct numerical calculation. We suggest that this phenomenon can be studied systematically using superconduct…
Understanding heat transfer between a quantum system and its environment is of undisputed importance if reliable quantum devices are to be constructed. Here, we investigate the heat transfer between system and bath in non-Markovian open systems in the process of adiabatic speedup. Using the quantum state diffusion equation method, the heat current, energy current, and power are calculated during free evolution and under external control of the system. While the heat current increases with increasing system-bath coupling strength and bath temperature, it can be restricted by the non-Markovian n…
The Uhrig dynamical decoupling sequence achieves high-order decoupling of a single system qubit from its dephasing bath through the use of bang-bang Pauli pulses at appropriately timed intervals. High-order decoupling of single and multiple qubit systems from baths causing both dephasing and relaxation can also be achieved through the nested application of Uhrig sequences, again using single-qubit Pauli pulses. For the 3-qubit decoherence free subsystem (DFS) and related subsystem encodings, Pauli pulses are not naturally available operations; instead, exchange interactions provide all require…
A mean field argument is used to derive a master equation for systems simultaneously interacting with external fields and coupled environmental degrees of freedom. We prove that this master equation preserves positivity of the reduced density matrix. Solutions of the master equation are compared with exact solutions for a system consisting of three spins which is manipulated with a sequence of laser pulses while interacting with a spin-bath. Exact solutions appear to converge to the master equation result as the number of bath spins increases.
We analytically and numerically study the effects of pulsed control on the decoherence of a qubit coupled to a quantum spin bath. When the environment is critical, decoherence is faster and we show that the control is relatively more effective. Two coupling models are investigated, namely a qubit coupled to a bath via a single link and a spin star model, yielding results that are similar and consistent.
We investigate the feasibility for the preservation of coherence and entanglement of one and two spin qubits coupled to an interacting quantum spin-1/2 chain within the dynamical decoupling (DD) scheme. The performance is examined by counting number of computing pulses that can be applied periodically with period of $T$ before qubits become decoherent, while identical decoupling pulse sequence is applied within each cycle. By considering pulses with mixed directions and finite width controlled by magnetic fields, it is shown that pulse-width accumulation degrades the performance of sequences w…
We study spin squeezing under non-Markovian channels, and consider an ensemble of $N$ independent spin-1/2 particles with exchange symmetry. Each spin interacts with its own bath, and the baths are independent and identical. For this kind of open system, the spin squeezing under decoherence can be investigated from the dynamics of the local expectations, and the multi-qubit dynamics can be reduced into the two-qubit one. The reduced dynamics is obtained by the hierarchy equation method, which is a exact without rotating-wave and Born-Markov approximation. The numerical results show that the sp…
We present pulsed electron-nuclear double resonance (ENDOR) experiments which enable us to characterize the coupling between bismuth donor spin qubits in Si and the surrounding spin bath of 29Si impurities which provides the dominant decoherence mechanism (nuclear spin diffusion) at low temperatures (< 16 K). Decoupling from the spin bath is predicted and cluster correlation expansion simulations show near-complete suppression of spin diffusion, at optimal working points. The suppression takes the form of sharply peaked divergences of the spin diffusion coherence time, in contrast with previou…
We outline an exact approach to decoherence and entanglement problems for continuous variable systems. The method is based on a construction of quantum distribution functions introduced by Ford and Lewis \cite{ford86} in which a system in thermal equilibrium is placed in an initial state by a measurement and then sampled by subsequent measurements. With the Langevin equation describing quantum Brownian motion, this method has proved to be a powerful tool for discussing such problems. After reviewing our previous work on decoherence and our recent work on disentanglement, we apply the method to…
We obtain exact dynamics of a two-qubit central spin model (CSM) consisting of two interacting qubits homogeneously coupled to a spin bath via the $XXZ$-type coupling, with the bath initially prepared in linear superpositions of the symmetric Dicke states. Using the interaction picture Hamiltonian with respect to the non-spin-flipping part of the model, we derive a sequence of equations of motion within each magnetization sector satisfied by the probability amplitudes of the time-evolved state. These equations of motion admit analytical solutions for the single-qubit CSM in which one of the tw…
We investigate how to protect quantum correlations for two qubits each locally interacting with its own non-Markovian environment by making use of bang-bang pulses. It is shown that the quantum discord dynamics presents the phenomenon of sudden change for some certain initial states. We also find that the amount of quantum correlation between two qubits can be improved by applying a train of pulses and protected more effectively with shorter interval pulses or longer reservoir correlation time.
We consider a system with general decoherence and a quadratic dynamical decoupling sequence (QDD) for the coherence control of a qubit coupled to a bath of spins. We investigate the influence of the geometry and of the initial conditions of the bath on the performance of the sequence. The overall performance is quantified by a distance norm $d$. It is expected that $d$ scales with $T$, the total duration of the sequence, as $T^{\min \{N_x,N_z\}+1}$, where $N_x$ and $N_z$ are the number of pulses of the outer and of the inner sequence, respectively. We show both numerically and analytically tha…
We derive the master equation of a system of two coupled qubits by taking into account their interaction with two independent bosonic baths. Important features of the dynamics are brought to light, such as the structure of the stationary state at general temperatures and the behaviour of the entanglement at zero temperature, showing the phenomena of sudden death and sudden birth as well as the presence of stationary entanglement for long times. The model here presented is quite versatile and can be of interest in the study of both Josephson junction architectures and cavity-QED.
We review various unitary time-dependent perturbation theories and compare them formally and numerically. We show that the Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser technique performs better owing to both the superexponential character of correction terms and the possibility to optimize the accuracy of a given level of approximation which is explored in details here. As an illustration, we consider a two-level system driven by short pulses beyond the sudden limit.
Many-body correlations can yield key insights into the nature of interacting systems; however, detecting them is often very challenging in many-particle physics, especially in nanoscale systems. Here, taking a phosphorus donor electron spin in a natural-abundance 29Si nuclear spin bath as our model system, we discover both theoretically and experimentally that many-body correlations in nanoscale nuclear spin baths produce identifiable signatures in the decoherence of the central spin under multiple-pulse dynamical decoupling control. We find that when the number of decoupling -pulses is odd, c…
The reduced dynamics of a single or two qubits coupled to an interacting quantum spin bath modeled by a XXZ spin chain is investigated. By using the method of time-dependent density matrix renormalization group (t-DMRG), we go beyond the uniform coupling central spin model and evaluate nonperturbatively the induced decoherence and entanglement. It is shown that both decoherence and entanglement strongly depend on the phase of the underlying spin bath. We show that in general, spin baths can induce entanglement for an initially disentangled pair of qubits. Furthermore, when the spin bath is in …
We study, in the paradigm of open quantum systems, the entanglement dynamics of two uniformly accelerated atoms with the same acceleration perpendicular to the separation. The two-atom system is treated as an open system coupled with a bath of fluctuating massless scalar fields in the Minkowski vacuum, and the master equation that governs its evolution is derived. It has been found that, for accelerated atoms with a nonvanishing separation, entanglement sudden death is a general feature when the initial state is entangled, while for those in a separable initial state, entanglement sudden birth…
Identifying weakly coupled nuclear spins around single electron spins is a key step of implementing quantum information processing using coupled electron-nuclei spin systems or sensing like single spin nuclear magnetic resonance detection using diamond defect spins. Dynamical decoupling control of the center electron spin with periodic pulse sequences [e.g., the Carre-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) sequence] has been successfully used to identify single nuclear spins and to resolve structure of nuclear spin clusters. Here, we design a new type of pulse sequences by replacing the repetition unit (…
We present a superconvergent Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser type of perturbation theory for time-dependent Hamiltonians. It is strictly unitary upon truncation at an arbitrary order and not restricted to periodic or quasiperiodic Hamiltonians. Moreover, for pulse-driven systems we construct explicitly the KAM transformations involved in the iterative procedure. The technique is illustrated on a two-level model perturbed by a pulsed interaction for which we obtain convergence all the way from the sudden regime to the opposite adiabatic regime.
Spin-bath noise characterization, which is typically performed by multi-pulse control sequences, is essential for understanding most spin dynamics in the solid-state. Here, we theoretically propose a method for extracting the characteristic parameters of a noise source with a known spectrum, using a single modified Hahn-echo sequence. By varying the application time of the pulse, measuring the coherence curves of an addressable spin, and fitting the decay coefficients to a theoretical function derived by us, we extract parameters characterizing the physical nature of the noise. Assuming a Lore…
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.
We examine the question of survival of quantum entanglement between the bipartite states and multiparticle states like GHZ states under the action of a dephasing bath by the application of sequence of $π$ pulses. We show the great advantage of the pulse sequence of Uhrig [ 2007 {\it Phys. Rev. Lett.} {\bf 98} 100504] applied at irregular intervals of time, in controlling quantum entanglement. In particular death of entanglement could be considerably delayed by pulses. We use quantum optical techniques to obtain exact results.
The entanglement between a Pauli-like two-level system and a quantum harmonic oscillator enhanced by an interaction between them and a $δ$-pulse sequence is studied, with the decoherence due to their coupling with a Markovian bath. Without the Markovian bath, the entanglement is enhanced to maximum possible values. With the Markovian bath, the entanglement is enhanced up to some time and then dissipated, with the system in thermal equilibrium with the Markovian bath after a very long time. The time for achieving the maximum entanglement shows discontinuous jumps over the parameters of decohere…
The coherent control of small quantum system is considered. For a two-level system coupled to an arbitrary bath we consider a pulse of finite duration. We derive the leading and the next-leading order corrections to the evolution operator due to the non-commutation of the pulse and the bath Hamiltonian. The conditions are computed that make the leading corrections vanish. The pulse shapes optimized in this way are given for $π$ and $\fracπ{2}$ pulses.
We explore the possibility of dynamical quantum phase transitions (DQPTs) occurring during the temporal evolution of a quenched transverse field Ising chain coupled to a particle loss type of bath (local in Jordan-Wigner fermion space) using two versions of the Loschmidt overlap (LO), namely, the fidelity induced LO and the interferometric phase induced LO. The bath, on the one hand, dictates the dissipative evolution following a sudden quench and on the other, plays a role in dissipative mixed state preparation in the later part of the study. During a dissipative evolution following a sudden …
The application of dynamical decoupling pulses to a single qubit interacting with a linear harmonic oscillator bath with $1/f$ spectral density is studied, and compared to the Ohmic case. Decoupling pulses that are slower than the fastest bath time-scale are shown to drastically reduce the decoherence rate in the $1/f$ case. Contrary to conclusions drawn from previous studies, this shows that dynamical decoupling pulses do not always have to be ultra-fast. Our results explain a recent experiment in which dephasing due to $1/f$ charge noise affecting a charge qubit in a small superconducting el…
Maintaining quantum coherence is a crucial requirement for quantum computation; hence protecting quantum systems against their irreversible corruption due to environmental noise is an important open problem. Dynamical decoupling (DD) is an effective method for reducing decoherence with a low control overhead. It also plays an important role in quantum metrology, where for instance it is employed in multiparameter estimation. While a sequence of equidistant control pulses (CPMG) has been ubiquitously used for decoupling, Uhrig recently proposed that a non-equidistant pulse sequence (UDD) may en…
We present a near-optimal quantum dynamical decoupling scheme that eliminates general decoherence of a qubit to order n using O(n^2) pulses, an exponential decrease in pulses over all previous decoupling methods. Numerical simulations of a qubit coupled to a spin bath demonstrate the superior performance of the new pulse sequences.
Avoiding the loss of coherence of quantum mechanical states is an important prerequisite for quantum information processing. Dynamical decoupling (DD) is one of the most effective experimental methods for maintaining coherence, especially when one can access only the qubit-system and not its environment (bath). It involves the application of pulses to the system whose net effect is a reversal of the system-environment interaction. In any real system, however, the environment is not static, and therefore the reversal of the system-environment interaction becomes imperfect if the spacing between…
We study the dynamics of disentanglement of two qubits initially prepared in a Bell state and coupled at different sites to an Ising transverse field spin chain (ITF) playing the role of a dynamic spin environment. The initial state of the whole system is prepared into a tensor product state $ρ_{Bell}\otimes ρ_{chain}$ where the state of the chain is taken to be given by the ground state $|G(λ_i)\rangle$ of the ITF Hamiltonian $H_E(λ_i)$ with an initial field $λ_i$. At time $t=0^+$, the strength of the transverse field is suddenly quenched to a new value $λ_f$ and the whole system (chain $+$ q…
We simulate numerically the dynamics of strongly correlated bosons in a two-leg ladder subject to a time-dependent energy bias between the two chains. When all atoms are initially in the leg with higher energy, we find a drastic reduction of the inter-chain particle transfer for slow linear sweeps, in quantitative agreement with recent experiments. This effect is preceded by a rapid broadening of the quasi-momentum distribution of atoms, signaling the presence of a bath of low-energy excitations in the chains. We further investigate the scenario of quantum quenches to fixed values of the energ…
Controlling the interaction of a single quantum system with its environment is a fundamental challenge in quantum science and technology. We dramatically suppress the coupling of a single spin in diamond with the surrounding spin bath by using double-axis dynamical decoupling. The coherence is preserved for arbitrary quantum states, as verified by quantum process tomography. The resulting coherence time enhancement is found to follow a general scaling with the number of decoupling pulses. No limit is observed for the decoupling action up to 136 pulses, for which the coherence time is enhanced …
We present a cluster expansion method for approximating quantum spin-bath dynamics in terms of a classical Gaussian stochastic process. The cluster expansion produces the two-point correlation function of the approximate classical bath, permitting rapid evaluation of noise-mitigating quantum control strategies without resorting to computationally intensive dynamical decoupling models. Our approximation is valid for the wide class of models possessing negligible back-action and nearly-Gaussian noise. We study several instances of the central spin decoherence problem in which the central spin an…
Feasible setup for pulsed quantum non-demolition interaction between two distant mechanical oscillators through optical or microwave mediator is proposed. The proposal uses homodyne measurement of the mediator and feedforward control of the mechanical oscillators to reach the interaction. To verify quantum nature of the interaction, we investigate the Gaussian entanglement generated in the mechanical modes. We evaluate it under influence of mechanical bath and propagation loss for the mediator and propose ways to optimize the interaction. Finally, both currently available optomechanical and el…
We numerically study the implementation of a NOT gate by laser pulses in a model molecular system presenting two electronic surfaces coupled by non adiabatic interactions. The two states of the bit are the fundamental states of the cis-trans isomers of the molecule. The gate is classical in the sense that it involves a one-qubit flip so that the encoding of the outputs is based on population analysis which does not take the phases into account. This gate can also be viewed as a double photo-switch process with the property that the same electric field controls the two isomerizations. As an exa…
We investigate the quantum thermodynamics of two quantum systems, a two-level system and a four-level quantum photocell, each driven by photon pulses as a quantum heat engine. We set these systems to be in thermal contact only with a cold reservoir while the heat (energy) source, conventionally given from a hot thermal reservoir, is supplied by a sequence of photon pulses. The dynamics of each system is governed by a coherent interaction due to photon pulses in terms of the Jaynes-Cummings Hamiltonian together with the system-bath interaction described by the Lindblad master equation. We calcu…
We derive an exact non-Markovian master equation that generalizes the previous work [Hu, Paz and Zhang, Phys. Rev. D {\bf 45}, 2843 (1992)] to damped harmonic oscillators with time-varying parameters. This is achieved by exploiting the linearity of the system and operator solution in Heisenberg picture. Our equation governs the non-Markovian quantum dynamics when the system is modulated by external devices. As an application, we apply our equation to parity kick decoupling problems. The time-dependent dissipative coefficients in the master equation are shown to be modified drastically when the…
