We employ spherical $t$-designs for the systematic construction of solids whose rotational degrees of freedom can be made robust to decoherence due to external fluctuating fields while simultaneously retaining their sensitivity to signals of interest. Specifically, the ratio of signal phase accumulation rate from a nearby source to the decoherence rate caused by fluctuating fields from more distant sources can be incremented to any desired level by using increasingly complex shapes. This allows for the generation of long-lived macroscopic quantum superpositions of rotational degrees of freedom and the robust generation of entanglement between two or more such solids with applications in robust quantum sensing and precision metrology as well as quantum registers.
The use of rotational degrees of freedom of quantum systems in quantum technologies is limited by environmental effects under decoherence mechanism. Here, we study the mechanism of decoherence based on a new formalism of elastic scattering for a nonspherical quantum system prepared in a superposition of rotational degrees of freedom. We show that for a dielectric ellipsoid immersed in an environment composed of thermal photons the rotational decoherence rate depends on the angular differences between the two configurations of the system and the seventh power of the temperature which is differe…
The mechanism of decoherence for a quantum system with rotational degrees of freedom is studied. From a simple model of elastic scattering, we show that the non-diagonal density matrix elements of the system exponentially decay. The decay rate depends on the difference of scattering amplitudes for different rotational configurations, leading to the gradual loss of quantum coherence between the pointer states in the system orientational space. For a dielectric ellipsoid immersed in a photon-gas environment (assuming no absorption), the decay rate is found to be proportional to the seventh power…
We present the quantum master equation describing the coherent and incoherent dynamics of a rapidly rotating molecule in presence of a thermal background gas. The master equation relates the rate of rotational alignment decay and decoherence to the microscopic scattering amplitudes, which we calculate for anisotropic van der Waals scattering. For large rotational energies, we find excellent agreement of the resulting alignment decay rate with recent superrotor experiments.
The dynamics of non-polar diatomic molecules interacting with a far-detuned narrow-band laser field, that only may drive rotational transitions, is studied. The rotation of the molecule is considered both classically and quantum mechanically, providing links to features known from the heavy symmetric top. In particular, quantum decoherence in the molecular rotation, being induced by spontaneous Raman processes, is addressed. It is shown how this decoherence modifies the rotational dynamics in phase space.
Recent advances in levitated optomechanics provide new perspectives for the use of rotational degrees of freedom for the development of quantum technologies as well as for testing fundamental physics. As for the translational case, their use, especially in the quantum regime, is limited by environmental noises, whose characterization is fundamental in order to assess, control and minimize their effect, in particular decoherence. Here, we present a general perturbative approach to compute decoherence for a quantum system in a superposition of its rotational degrees of freedom. The specific case…
A mesoscopic evolution equation for an ensemble of mesoparticles follows after the elimination of internal degrees of freedom. If the system is composed of a hierarchy of scales, the reduction procedure could be worked repeatedly and the characterization of this iterating method is carried out. Namely, a prescription describing a discrete hierarchy of master equations for the density operator is obtained. Decoherence follows from the irreversible coupling of the systems, defined by mesoscopic variables, to internal degrees of freedom. We discuss briefly the existence of systems with the same d…
We consider a composite system consisting of coupled particles, and investigate decoherence due to coupling of the center-of-mass degree of freedom with the internal degrees of freedom. For a simple model of two bound particles, we show that in general such a decoherence effect exists, and leads to suppression of interference between different paths of the center-of-mass. For the special case of two harmonically-bound particles moving in an external potential in one dimension, we show that the coupling between the center-of-mass and internal degrees of freedom can be approximated as parametric…
We propose a quantum computer architecture which is robust against decoherence and scalable. As a qubit, we adopt rotational states of a nonpolar ionic molecule trapped in an ion-trap. It is revealed that the rotational-state qubits are much more immune to decoherence than the conventional electronic-state qubits of atomic ions. A complete method set for state preparation, single-qubit gate, controlled-NOT gate, and qubit-readout suitable for the rotational-state qubits is provided. Since the ionic molecules can be transported in an array of ion traps, the rotational-state qubits are expected …
We show that decoherence is determined by the effective Hilbert space size, and demonstrate that a few degrees of freedom system can simulate a "N" degrees of freedom environment if they have the same effective Hilbert space. The effective Hilbert space size of the environment also determines its long time efficiency as generator of irreversible coherence loss.
For a discrete time quantum walk (QW) on the $N$-cycle, allowing for decoherence on the coin, we derive a number of new results, including an explicit formula for the position probability distribution. For a QW of this type, we show that the mixing behavior tends, in the long-run, to a uniform distribution, regardless of the initial state of the system and irrespective of the parity of the number of nodes $N$. These results confirm the findings of previous authors who arrived at similar conclusions through extensive numerical simulations. In particular, we infer that the mixing time $\bar{M(ε)…
On this work, we consider a particle moving in front of a dielectric plate, and study two of the most relevant effects of the vacuum field fluctuations: the dissipation, and the decoherence of the particle's internal degrees of freedom. We consider the particle to follow a classical, macroscopically-fixed trajectory. To study the dissipative effects, we calculate the in-out effective action by functionally integrating over the vacuum field and the microscopic degrees of freedom of both the plate and the particle. This in-out effective action develops an imaginary part, hence a non-vanishing pr…
In a quantum measurement setting, it is known that environment-induced decoherence theory describes the emergence of effectively classical features of the quantum system-measuring apparatus composite system when the apparatus is allowed to interact with the environment. In [E.A. Galapon {\it EPL} {\bf 113} 60007 (2016)], a measurement model is found to have the feature of inducing exact decoherence at a finite time via one internal degree of freedom of the apparatus provided that the apparatus is decomposed into a pointer and an inaccessible probe, with the pointer and the probe being in momen…
Consider a discrete-time quantum walk on the $N$-cycle subject to decoherence both on the coin and the position degrees of freedom. By examining the evolution of the density matrix of the system, we derive some new conclusions about the asymptotic behavior of the system. When $N$ is odd, the density matrix of the system tends, in the long run, to the maximally mixed state, independent of the initial state. When $N$ is even, although the behavior of the system is not necessarily asymptotically stationary, in this case too an explicit formulation is obtained of the asymptotic dynamics of the sys…
Quantum dissipation is studied within two model oscillators, the Caldirola-Kanai (CK) oscillator as an open system with one degree of freedom and the Bateman-Feshbach-Tikochinsky (BFT) oscillator as a closed system with two degrees of freedom. Though these oscillators describe the same classical damped motion, the CK oscillator retains the quantum coherence, whereas the damped subsystem of the BFT oscillator exhibits both quantum decoherence and classical correlation. Furthermore the amplified subsystem of the BFT oscillator shows the same degree of quantum decohernce and classical correlation…
When a confined system interacts with its walls (treated quantum mechanically), there is an intertwining of degrees of freedom. We show that this need not lead to entanglement, hence decoherence. It will generally lead to error. The wave function optimization required to avoid decoherence is also examined.
In a recent paper [Nature 412, 712 (2001)], Zurek has argued that (1) time evolution typically causes chaotic quantum systems to generate structure that varies on the scale of phase-space volume elements of size $(\hbar^2/A)^d$, where A is a classical action characteristic of the state and d is the number of degrees of freedom, and that (2) this structure implies that a small change in a phase-space coordinate X by an amount $δX \sim \hbar X/A$ generically results in an orthogonal state. While we agree with (1), we argue that (2) is not correct if the number of degrees of freedom is small. Our…
We investigate numerically the tunneling effect under influence of another particle in a double well system. Such influence from only one degree of freedom makes decoherence and quantum-classical transition, i.e., suppression of the tunneling effect. The decoherence happens even for cases that the influence is from a particle of very small mass, and it has virtually no effect in the corresponding classical dynamics. There are cases similar to dynamical localization that the suppressed tunneling rate is several times smaller than the classical counterpart. This result is relevant for understand…
Emergent quantum technologies have led to increasing interest in decoherence - the processes that limit the appearance of quantum effects and turn them into classical phenomena. One important cause of decoherence is the interaction of a quantum system with its environment, which 'entangles' the two and distributes the quantum coherence over so many degrees of freedom as to render it unobservable. Decoherence theory has been complemented by experiments using matter waves coupled to external photons or molecules, and by investigations using coherent photon states, trapped ions and electron inter…
We study the spontaneous decoherence of the coupled harmonic oscillators confined in a ring container, where the nearest-neighbor harmonic potentials are taken into consideration. Without any external symmetry breaking field or surrounding environment, the quantum superposition state prepared in the relative degrees of freedom gradually loses its quantum coherence spontaneously. This spontaneous decoherence is interpreted by the hidden couplings between the center-of-mass and relative degrees of freedoms, which actually originates from the symmetries of the ring geometry and corresponding nont…
Nuclei are rather classical systems in a sense. In the old days, their phenomena were roughly explained in classical rules such as the liquid drop model. This fact may be understood that when we see an finite quantum many body system like nucleus, though which is a group of quantum mechanical particles, its any collective degree of freedom has any classicality. Getting a classicality does not depend on spatial scales of objects. It is made by a phenomenon called Quantum Decoherence. We have studied about Quantum Decoherence in a finite system as nucleus. In this paper, at the harmonic three bo…
We propose an effective Hamiltonian approach to investigate decoherence of a quantum system in a non-Markovian reservoir, naturally imposing the complete positivity on the reduced dynamics of the system. The formalism is based on the notion of an effective reservoir, i.e., certain collective degrees of freedom in the reservoir that are responsible for the decoherence. As examples for completely positive decoherence, we present three typical decoherence processes for a qubit such as dephasing, depolarizing, and amplitude-damping. The effects of the non-Markovian decoherence are compared to the …
Chaotic evolutions exhibit exponential sensitivity to initial conditions. This suggests that even very small perturbations resulting from weak coupling of a quantum chaotic environment to the position of a system whose state is a non-local superposition will lead to rapid decoherence. However, it is also known that quantum counterparts of classically chaotic systems lose exponential sensitivity to initial conditions, so this expectation of enhanced decoherence is by no means obvious. We analyze decoherence due to a "toy" quantum environment that is analytically solvable, yet displays the cruci…
This Letter studies the decoherence in a system of two antiferromagnetically coupled spins that interact with a spin bath environment. Systems are considered that range from the rotationally invariant to highly anisotropic spin models, have different topologies and values of parameters that are fixed or are allowed to fluctuate randomly. We explore the conditions under which the two-spin system clearly shows an evolution from the initial spin-up - spin-down state towards the maximally entangled singlet state. We demonstrate that frustration and, especially, glassiness of the spin environment s…
We present the Markovian quantum master equation describing rotational decoherence, friction, diffusion, and thermalization of planar, linear, and asymmetric rotors in contact with a thermal environment. It describes how an arbitrary initial rotation state decoheres and evolves toward a Gibbs-like thermal ensemble, as we illustrate numerically for the linear and the planar top, and it yields the expected rotational Fokker-Planck equation of Brownian motion in the semiclassical limit.
We propose a strategy to modulate the decoherence dynamics of a two-level system, which interacts with a dissipative bosonic environment, by introducing an assisted degree of freedom. It is revealed that the decay rate of the two-level system can be significantly suppressed under suitable steers of the assisted degree of freedom. Our result provides an alternative way to fight against decoherence and realize a controllable dissipative dynamics.
Motivated by trapping and cooling experiments with non-spherical nanoparticles, we discuss how their combined rotational and translational quantum state is affected by the interaction with a gaseous environment. Based on the quantum master equation in terms of orientation-dependent scattering amplitudes, we evaluate the localization rate for gas collisions off an anisotropic van der Waals-type potential and for photon scattering off an anisotropic dielectric. We also show how pure angular momentum diffusion arises from these open quantum dynamics in the limit of weak anisotropies.
We suggest a novel proposal to express decoherence in open quantum systems by jointly employing spectral and stochastic methods. This proposal, which basically perturbs the unitary evolution operator in a random fashion, allows us to embrace both markovian and nonmarkovian situations with little extra effort. We argue that it can be very suitable to deal with models where an approximation neglecting some degrees of freedom is undertaken. Mathematical simplicity is also obtained both to solve some master equations and to arrive at experimentally measured decoherence functions.
We study the spatial decoherence dynamics for the relative position of two atoms in a singlemode ring cavity. We find that the spatial decoherence of the two atoms depends strongly on their relative position. Taking into account the spatial degrees of freedom, we investigate the entanglement dynamics of the internal states of the two atoms. It is shown that the entanglement decays to almost zero in a finite time, and the disentanglement time depends on the width of the wave packets describing the atomic spatial distribution.
We investigate how to carry out universal quantum computation deterministically with free electrons in decoherence-free subspace by using polarizing beam splitters, charge detectors, and single-spin rotations. Quantum information in our case is encoded in spin degrees of freedom of the electron-pairs which construct a decoherence-free subspace. We design building blocks for two noncommutable single-logic-qubit gates and a logic controlled phase gate, based on which a universal and scalable quantum information processing robust to dephasing is available in a deterministic way.
The environment -- external or internal degrees of freedom coupled to the system -- can, in effect, monitor some of its observables. As a result, the eigenstates of these observables decohere and behave like classical states: Continuous destruction of superpositions leads to environment-induced superselection (einselection). Here I investigate it in the context of quantum chaos (i. e., quantum dynamics of systems which are classically chaotic).
We describe a model for the interaction of the internal (spin) degree of freedom of a quantum lattice-gas particle with an environmental bath. We impose the constraints that the particle-bath interaction be fixed, while the state of the bath is random, and that the effect of the particle-bath interaction be parity invariant. The condition of parity invariance defines a subgroup of the unitary group of actions on the spin degree of freedom and the bath. We derive a general constraint on the Lie algebra of the unitary group which defines this subgroup, and hence guarantees parity invariance of t…
It is known that a quantum system with finite degrees of freedom can simulate a composite of a system and an environment if the state of the hypothetical environment is randomized by external manipulation. We show theoretically that any phase decoherence phenomena of a single qubit can be simulated with a two-qubit system and demonstrate experimentally two examples: one is phase decoherence of a single qubit in a transmission line, and the other is that in a quantum memory. We perform NMR experiments employing a two-spin molecule and clearly measure decoherence for both cases. We also prove ex…
Complex molecules are intriguing objects at the interface between quantum and classical phenomena. Compared to the electrons, neutrons, or atoms studied in earlier matter-wave experiments, they feature a much more complicated internal structure, but can still behave as quantum objects in their center-of-mass motion. Molecules may involve a large number of vibrational modes and highly excited rotational states, they can emit thermal photons, electrons, or even atoms, and they exhibit large cross sections for collisional interactions with residual background gases. This makes them ideal candidat…
An examination of the concept of using classical degrees of freedom to drive the evolution of quantum computers is given. Specifically, when externally generated, coherent states of the electromagnetic field are used to drive transitions within the qubit system, a decoherence results due to the back reaction from the qubits onto the quantum field. We derive an expression for the decoherence rate for two cases, that of the single-qubit Walsh-Hadamard transform, and for an implementation of the controlled-NOT gate. We examine the impact of this decoherence mechanism on Grover's search algorithm,…
We have studied the emergence of classical states in the perturbative interaction model. The states which interact with many other degrees of freedom, such as the center of mass of a macro-object, play important role. Although the random phase mechanism is effective as same as Zurek's strong correlation model, there are enormous states, each of which independently developes due to the orthogonality of the environmental states. In these privileged states, the subsystem picture with the separability is stable.
Encoding qubits in multiple degrees of freedom (DOFs) of a quantum system allows less-decoherence quantum information processing with much less quantum resources. We present a compact and scalable quantum circuit to determinately implement a hyper-parallel controlled-controlled-phase-flip (hyper-$\rm{C^2PF}$) gate on a three-photon system in both the polarization and spatial DOFs. In contrast with the one with many qubits encoding in one DOF only, our hyper-$\rm{C^2PF}$ gate operating two independent $\rm{C^2PF}$ gates on a three-photon system with less decoherence, and reduces the quantum res…
Local and global approaches to the thermodynamics of pure decoherence processes in open quantum systems
University of Freiburg（弗赖堡大学）；Università degli Studi di Milano（米兰大学）；INFN, Sezione di Milano（意大利国家核物理研究所米兰分部）；EUCOR Centre for Quantum Science and Quantum Computing, University of Freiburg（弗赖堡大学EUCOR量子科学与量子计算中心）
We study the effects of dissipation and decoherence induced on a harmonic oscillator by the coupling to a chaotic system with two degrees of freedom. Using the Feynman-Vernon approach and treating the chaotic system semiclassically we show that the effects of the low dimensional chaotic environment are in many ways similar to those produced by thermal baths. The classical correlation and response functions play important roles in both classical and quantum formulations. Our results are qualitatively similar to the high temperature regime of the Caldeira-Leggett model.
The effect induced by an environment on a composite quantum system is studied. The model considers the composite system as comprised by a subsystem A coupled to a subsystem B which is also coupled to an external environment. We study all possible four combinations of subsystems A and B made up with a harmonic oscillator and an upside down oscillator. We analyzed the decoherence suffered by subsystem A due to an effective environment composed by subsystem B and the external reservoir. In all the cases we found that subsystem A decoheres even though it interacts with the environment only through…
Consider a discrete-time quantum walk on the $N$-cycle governed by the following condition: at every time step of the walk, the option persists, with probability $p$, of exercising a projective measurement on the coin degree of freedom. For a bipartite quantum system of this kind, we prove that the von Neumann entropy of the total density operator converges to its maximum value. Thus, when influenced by decoherence, the mutual information between the two subsystems, corresponding respectively to the space of the coin and the space of the walker, eventually must diminish to zero. To put it plai…
In the lectures we will be concerned with some aspects of physical implementations of quantum gate operations which are necessary for quantum information processing. We will discuss two possible realizations. One of them is based on qubits being encoded in atomic degrees of freedom where the atoms are manipulated in optical lattices above atom chips. The other realization is based on photonic qubits and measurement-induced nonlinearities in linear optics. Both implementations have in common that their main decoherence mechanism is absorption in dielectric materials. The quantum theory of light…
We study the decoherence effects originating from state flipping and depolarization for two-dimensional discrete-time quantum walks using four-state and two-state particles. By quantifying the quantum correlations between the particle and position degree of freedom and between the two spatial ($x-y$) degrees of freedom using measurement induced disturbance (MID), we show that the two schemes using a two-state particle are more robust against decoherence than the Grover walk, which uses a four-state particle. We also show that the symmetries which hold for two-state quantum walks breakdown for …
We consider the description of quantum noise within the framework of the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to a composite system environment setting. Averaging over the environmental degrees of freedom leads to a stochastic quantum dynamics, described by equations complying with the constraints arising from the statistical structure of quantum mechanics. Simple examples are considered in the framework of open system dynamics described within a master equation approach, pointing in particular to the appearance of the phenomenon of decoherence and to the relevance o…
This review summarizes and amplifies on recent investigations of coupled quantum dynamical systems in the short wavelength limit. We formulate and attempt to answer three fundamental questions: (i) What drives a dynamical quantum system to behave classically ? (ii) What determines the rate at which two coupled quantum--mechanical systems become entangled ? (iii) How does irreversibility occur in quantum systems with few degrees of freedom ? We embed these three questions in the broader context of the quantum--classical correspondence, which motivates the use of short--wavelength approximations…
Quantum decoherence arises due to uncontrollable entanglement between a system with its environment. However the effects of decoherence are often thought of and modeled through a simpler picture in which the role of the environment is to introduce classical noise in the system's degrees of freedom. Here we establish necessary conditions that the classical noise models need to satisfy to quantitatively model the decoherence. Specifically, for pure-dephasing processes we identify well-defined statistical properties for the noise that are determined by the quantum many-point time correlation func…
We study the dynamics of entanglement in spin gases. A spin gas consists of a (large) number of interacting particles whose random motion is described classically while their internal degrees of freedom are described quantum-mechanically. We determine the entanglement that occurs naturally in such systems for specific types of quantum interactions. At the same time, these systems provide microscopic models for non--Markovian decoherence: the interaction of a group of particles with other particles belonging to a background gas are treated exactly, and differences between collective and non--co…
The conventional conception of decoherence relies on the interaction with an external set of degrees of freedom - the 'bath' - to which the system loses quantum information. But the role of the bath can be played too by any internal degrees of freedom that are not accessible to the observer, and in this sense we can talk about 'Self-Induced Decoherence'. Simulating the exact time-evolution of the few-body Bose-Hubbard Hamiltonian, we provide numerical evidence of the decay of quantum purity in the sense of 'temporal typicality' referred in the context of pure state Quantum Statistical Mechanic…
In quantum systems of a macroscopic size V, such as interacting many particles and quantum computers with many qubits, there exist pure states such that fluctuations of some intensive operator A is anomalously large, <δA^2> = O(V^0), which is much larger than that assumed in thermodynamics, <δA^2> = O(1/V). By making full use of the locality, we show, starting from Hamiltonians of macroscopic degrees of freedom, that such states decohere at anomalously fast rates when they are weakly perturbed from environments.
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）
Translation-covariant Markovian master equations used in the description of decoherence and dissipation are considered in the general framework of Holevo's results on the characterization of generators of covariant quantum dynamical semigroups. A general connection between the characteristic function of classical Lévy processes and loss of coherence of the statistical operator describing the center of mass degrees of freedom of a quantum system interacting through momentum transfer events with an environment is established. The relationship with both microphysical models and experimental reali…
The recently proposed Wigner function for a particle in an infinite lattice [NJP 14, 103009 (2012)] is extended here to include an internal degree of freedom, as spin. The formalism is developed to account for dynamical processes, with or without decoherence. We show explicit solutions for the case of Hamiltonian evolution under a position-dependent potential, and for evolution governed by a master equation under some simple models of decoherence. Discrete processes are also discussed. Finally we discuss the possibility of introducing a negativity concept for the Wigner function in the case in…
Physical systems must fulfill a number of conditions to qualify as useful quantum bits (qubits) for quantum information processing, including ease of manipulation, long decoherence times, and high fidelity readout operations. Since these conditions are hard to satisfy with a single system, it may be necessary to combine different degrees of freedom. Here we discuss a possible system, based on electronic and nuclear spin degrees of freedom in trapped ions. The nuclear spin yields long decoherence times, while the electronic spin, in a magnetic field gradient, provides efficient manipulation, an…
