Reliable processing of quantum information is a milestone to achieve for the deployment of quantum technologies. Uncontrolled, out-of-equilibrium sources of decoherence need to be characterized in detail for designing the control of quantum devices to mitigate the loss of quantum information. However, quantum sensing of such environments is still a challenge due to their non-stationary nature that in general can generate complex high-order correlations. We here introduce a path integral framework to characterize non-stationary environmental fluctuations by a quantum probe. We found the solution for the decoherence decay of non-stationary, generalized Gaussian processes that induce pure dephasing. This dephasing when expressed in a suitable basis, based on the non-stationary noise eigenmodes, is defined by the overlap of a generalized noise spectral density and a filter function that depends on the control fields. This result thus extends the validity to out-of-equilibrium environments, of the similar general expression for the dephasing of open quantum systems coupled to stationary noises. We show physical insights for a broad subclass of non-stationary noises that are local-in-time, in the sense that the noise correlation functions contain memory based on constraints of the derivatives of the fluctuating noise paths. Spectral and non-Markovian properties are discussed together with implementations of the framework to treat paradigmatic environments that are out-of-equilibrium, e.g. due to a quench and a pulsed noise. We show that our results provide tools for probing the spectral and time-correlation properties, and for mitigating decoherence effects of out-of-equilibrium -- non-stationary -- environments.
We experimentally investigate a superconducting qubit coupled to the end of an open transmission line, in a regime where the qubit decay rates to the transmission line and to its own environment are comparable. We perform measurements of coherent and incoherent scattering, on- and off-resonant fluorescence, and time-resolved dynamics to determine the decay and decoherence rates of the qubit. In particular, these measurements let us discriminate between non-radiative decay and pure dephasing. We combine and contrast results across all methods and find consistent values for the extracted rates. …
We study the decoherence speed limit (DSL) of a single impurity atom immersed in a Bose-Einsteincondensed (BEC) reservoir when the impurity atom is in a double-well potential. We demonstrate how the DSL of the impurity atom can be manipulated by engineering the BEC reservoir and the impurity potential within experimentally realistic limits. We show that the DSL can be controlled by changing key parameters such as the condensate scattering length, the effective dimension of the BEC reservoir, and the spatial configuration of the double-well potential imposed on the impurity. We uncover the phys…
We present expressions demonstrating that collisional decoherence of ultracold atoms or molecules in a coherent superposition of non-degenerate quantum states is suppressed when both the real and imaginary parts of the scattering lengths for the states in the coherent superposition are equal. We show that the rate of collisional decoherence can be enhanced or suppressed by varying an external magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance. For some resonances, the suppression is very dramatic. We propose a method for measuring the scattering length of ultracold particles in excited quantum states ex…
We study how macroscopic superpositions of coherent states produced by the nondissipative dynamics of binary mixtures of ultracold atoms are affected by atom losses. We identify different decoherence scenarios for symmetric or asymmetric loss rates and interaction energies in the two modes. In the symmetric case the quantum coherence in the superposition is lost after a single loss event. By tuning appropriately the energies we show that the superposition can be protected, leading to quantum correlations useful for atom interferometry even after many loss events.
It is shown that, through a super-radiant Rayleigh scattering, a strong far off-resonant pump laser applied to a Bose-Einstein condensates(BEC) can induce a non-demolition coupling of the many-mode quantized vacuum field to the BEC. This effective interaction will force the total system of the BEC plus the light field to evolve from a factorized initial state to an ideal entangled state and thus result in the quantum decoherence in the BEC. Since the effective coupling coefficients are mainly determined by the Rabi frequency of the pump laser, the quantum decoherence process can be controlled …
By use of external periodic driving sources, we demonstrate the possibility of controlling the coherent as well as the decoherent dynamics of a two-level atom placed in a lossy cavity. The control of the coherent dynamics is elucidated for the phenomenon of coherent destruction of tunneling (CDT), i.e., the coherent dynamics of a driven two-level atom in a quantum superposition state can be brought practically to a complete standstill. We study this phenomenon for different initial preparations of the two-level atom. We then proceed to investigate the decoherence originating from the interacti…
We study the decoherence dynamics of Majorana qubit braiding operations in a topological superconducting chain (TSC) system, in which the braiding is performed by controlling the electron-chemical potentials of the TSCs and the couplings between them. By solving rigorously the Majorana qubit dynamics, we show how the Majorana qubit coherence is generated through bogoliubon correlations formed by exchanging Majorana zero modes (MZMs) between two TSCs in braiding operations. Using the exact master equation, we demonstrate how MZMs and also the bogoliubon correlations dissipate due to charge fluc…
We have studied the effect of a non-Hermitian Bosonic bath on the dynamics of a two-level spin system. The non-Hermitian Hamiltonian of the bath is chosen such that it converges to the harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian when the non-Hermiticity is switched off. We calculate the dynamics of the spin system and found that the non-Hermiticity can have positive as well as negative effects on the coherence of the system. However, the decoherence can be completely eliminated by choosing the non-Hermiticity parameter and the phase of the system bath interaction appropriately. We have also studied the ef…
Understanding and mitigating decoherence is a key challenge for quantum science and technology. The main source of decoherence for solid-state spin systems is the uncontrolled spin bath environment. Here, we demonstrate quantum control of a mesoscopic spin bath in diamond at room temperature that is composed of electron spins of substitutional nitrogen impurities. The resulting spin bath dynamics are probed using a single nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centre electron spin as a magnetic field sensor. We exploit the spin bath control to dynamically suppress dephasing of the NV spin by the spin bath. Fur…
We review progress on the spintronics proposal for quantum computing where the quantum bits (qubits) are implemented with electron spins. We calculate the exchange interaction of coupled quantum dots and present experiments, where the exchange coupling is measured via transport. Then, experiments on single spins on dots are described, where long spin relaxation times, on the order of a millisecond, are observed. We consider spin-orbit interaction as sources of spin decoherence and find theoretically that also long decoherence times are expected. Further, we describe the concept of spin filteri…
It has been claimed that decoherence of open quantum systems explains the tendency of macroscopic systems to exhibit quasiclassical behavior. We show that quasiclassicality is in fact an unremarkable property, characterizing generic subsystems of environments even in the absence of dynamical decoherence. It is suggested that decoherence is best regarded as explaining the persistence of true classicality, rather than the emergence, rather than the emergence of quasiclassicality.
Unitary control and decoherence appear to be irreconcilable in quantum mechanics. When a quantum system interacts with an environment, control strategies usually fail due to decoherence. In this letter, we propose a time-optimal unitary control protocol suitable for quantum open systems. The method is based on succesive diabatic and sudden switch transitions in the avoided crossings of the energy spectra of closed systems. We show that the speed of this control protocol meets the fundamental bounds imposed by the quantum speed limit, thus making this scheme ideal for application where decohere…
Control of electron spin decoherence in contact with a mesoscopic bath of many interacting nuclear spins in an InAs quantum dot is studied by solving the coupled quantum dynamics. The nuclear spin bath, because of its bifurcated evolution predicated on the electron spin up or down state, measures the which-state information of the electron spin and hence diminishes its coherence. The many-body dynamics of nuclear spin bath is solved with a pair-correlation approximation. In the relevant timescale, nuclear pair-wise flip-flops, as elementary excitations in the mesoscopic bath, can be mapped int…
We study the effect of decoherence on a weak value measurement in a paradigm system consisting of a double quantum dot continuously measured by a quantum point contact. Fluctuations of the parameters controlling the dot state induce decoherence. We find that, for measurements longer than the decoherence time, weak values are always reduced within the range of the eigenvalues of the measured observable. For measurements at shorter time scales, the measured weak value strongly depends on the interplay between the decoherence dynamics of the system and the detector backaction. In particular, depe…
Measurement processes can be separated into an entangling interaction between the system and a meter and a subsequent read-out of the meter state that does not involve any further interactions with the system. In the interval between these two stages, the system and the meter are in an entangled state that encodes all possible effects of the read-out in the form of non-local quantum correlations between the system and the meter. Here, we show that the entanglement generated in the system-meter interaction expresses a fundamental relation between the amount of decoherence and the conditional pr…
The dynamics of a spin in the presence of a deterministic and a fluctuating magnetic field is solved for analytically to obtain the averaged value of the spin as a function of time for various kinds of fluctuations (noise). Specifically, analytic results are obtained for the time dependence of the expectation value of the spin, averaged over fluctuations, for Gaussian white noise and Guassian colored noise, as well as non-Gaussian telegraph noise. Fluctuations cause the decay of the average spin vector (decoherence). For noise with finite temporal correlation time, a deterministic component of…
The uncertainty principle is an inherent characteristic of quantum mechanics. This principle can be formulated in various form. Fundamentally, this principle can be expressed in terms of the standard deviation of the measured observables. In quantum information theory the preferred mathematical quantity to express the entropic uncertainty relation is the Shannon's entropy. In this work, we consider the generalized entropic uncertainty relation in which there is an additional particle as a quantum memory. Alice measures on her particle $A$ and Bob, with memory particle $B$, predicts the Alice's…
We study quantum information flow in a model comprising of an impurity qubit immersed in a Bose-Einstein condensed reservoir. We demonstrate how information flux between the qubit and the condensate can be manipulated by engineering the ultracold reservoir within experimentally realistic limits. We place a particular emphasis on non-Markovian dynamics, characterized by a reversed flow of information from the background gas to the qubit and identify a controllable crossover between Markovian and non-Markovian dynamics in the parameter space of the model.
The advent of quantum devices, which exploit the two essential elements of quantum physics, coherence and entanglement, has sparked renewed interest in the control of open quantum systems. Successful implementations face the challenge to preserve the relevant nonclassical features at the level of device operation. A major obstacle is decoherence which is caused by interaction with the environment. Optimal control theory is a tool that can be used to identify control strategies in the presence of decoherence. We review here recent advances in optimal control methodology that allow for tackling …
In this paper, we study the exact dynamics of open quantum systems to the case with periodic driving field. It is shown that different from the static adjustment of the system on-site energy that can either generate or destroy the dissipationless localized bound states, the periodic driving can either preserve the existed localized bound states or destroy some of them but cannot generate new localized bound states. With the picture of energy transfer involved with the driving field, we find the condition for the survival of the localized bound states when the driving amplitude is weak. For the…
We study how the decoherence of macroscopic objects is induced intrisinically by relativistic effect. With the degree of freedom of center of mass (CM) characterizing the collective quantum state of a macroscopic object (MO), it is found that a MO consisting of N particles can decohere with time scale no more than sqrt(N). Here, the special relativity can induce the coupling of the collective motion mode and the relative motion modes in an order of 1/c2, which intrinsically results in the above minimum decoherence.
Quantum mechanical systems lose coherence through interactions with external environments---a process known as decoherence. Although decoherence is detrimental for most of the tasks in quantum information processing, a substantial degree of decoherence is crucial for boosting the efficiency of quantum processes, for example, in quantum biology. The key to the success in simulating those open quantum systems is therefore the ability of controlling decoherence, instead of eliminating it. Here we focus on the problem of simulating quantum open systems with Nitrogen-Vacancy centers, which has beco…
We analyze and compare three different strategies, all aimed at controlling and eventually halting decoherence. The first strategy hinges upon the quantum Zeno effect, the second makes use of frequent unitary interruptions ("bang-bang" pulses and their generalization, quantum dynamical decoupling), and the third of a strong, continuous coupling. Decoherence is shown to be suppressed only if the frequency N of the measurements/pulses is large enough or if the coupling K is sufficiently strong. Otherwise, if N or K are large, but not extremely large, all these control procedures accelerate decoh…
We make a novel observation about the decoherence phenomenon of the fermion in the Witten's supersymmetric (SUSY) quantum mechanical model. It is shown that, when the bosonic partner in the SUNY model is unobservable in a certain energy scale, the quantum coherence meant by the superposition of fermion states can not be preserved for a long time due to the quantum decoherence induced by the overlooked boson. This refers to a supercharge superselection rule similar to the charge superselection. We numerically calculate the decoherence factor characterizing the extent of decoherence . The obtain…
This paper discusses work developed in recent years, in the domain of quantum optics, which has led to a better understanding of the classical limit of quantum mechanics. New techniques have been proposed, and experimentally demonstrated, for characterizing and monitoring in real time the quantum state of an electromagnetic field in a cavity. They allow the investigation of the dynamics of the decoherence process by which a quantum-mechanical superposition of coherent states of the field becomes a statistical mixture.
We propose a novel architecture for scalable quantum computation based on quantum actuated decoherence-free (DF) qubits. Each qubit is encoded by the DF subspace of a nuclear spin pair and has long coherence time. A nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond is chosen as the quantum actuator to realize initialization, readout and universal control of DF qubits with fidelities higher than 99%. It reduces the challenge of classical interfaces from controlling and observing complex quantum systems down to a simple quantum actuator. Our scheme also provides a novel way to handle complex quantum systems.
The dominant source of decoherence in contemporary frequency-tunable superconducting qubits is 1/$f$ flux noise. To understand its origin and find ways to minimize its impact, we systematically study flux noise amplitudes in more than 50 flux qubits with varied SQUID geometry parameters and compare our results to a microscopic model of magnetic spin defects located at the interfaces surrounding the SQUID loops. Our data are in agreement with an extension of the previously proposed model, based on numerical simulations of the current distribution in the investigated SQUIDs. Our results and deta…
This paper explores the possibility that an exactly decoherent set of histories may be constructed from an approximately decoherent set by small distortions of the operators characterizing the histories. In particular, for the case of histories of positions and momenta, this is achieved by doubling the set of operators and then finding, amongst this enlarged set, new position and momentum operators which commute, so decohere exactly, and which are ``close'' to the original operators. The enlarged, exactly decoherent, theory has the same classical dynamics as the original one, and coincides wit…
We introduce the quantitative measures characterizing the rates of decoherence and thermalization of quantum systems. We study the time evolution of these measures in the case of a quantum harmonic oscillator whose relaxation is described in the framework of the standard master equation, for various initial states (coherent, `cat', squeezed and number). We establish the conditions under which the true decoherence measure can be approximated by the linear entropy $1-{Tr}\hatρ^2$. We show that at low temperatures and for highly excited initial states the decoherence process consists of three dis…
Understanding the physical significance and probing the global invariants characterizing quantum topological phases in extended systems is a main challenge in modern physics with major impact in different areas of science. Here, a quantum-information-inspired probing method is proposed where topological phase transitions are revealed by a non-Markovianity quantifier. The idea is illustrated by considering the decoherence dynamics of an external read-out qubit that probes a Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) chain with either pure dephasing or dissipative coupling. Qubit decoherence features and non-Ma…
We compare decoherence induced in a simple quantum system (qubit) for two different initial states of the environment: canonical (fixed temperature) and microcanonical (fixed energy), for the general case of a fully interacting oscillator environment. We find that even a relatively compact oscillator bath (with the effective number of degrees of freedom of order 10), initially in a microcanonical state, will typically cause decoherence almost indistinguishable from that by a macroscopic, thermal environment, except possibly at singularities of the environment's specific heat (critical points).…
We investigate the optimal control problem for non-Markovian open, dissipative quantum system. Optimal control using Pontryagin maximum principle is specifically derived. The influences of Ohmic reservoir with Lorentz-Drude regularization are numerically studied in a two-level system under the following three conditions: ω_0\llω_c, ω_0\approxω_c or ω_0\ggω_c, where ω_0 is the characteristic frequency of the quantum system of interest, and ω_c the cut-off frequency of Ohmic reservoir. The optimal control process shows its remarkable influences on the decoherence dynamics. The temperature is a k…
Characterizing a quantum process is the critical first step towards applying such a process in a quantum information protocol. Full process characterization is known to be extremely resource-intensive, motivating the search for more efficient ways to extract salient information about the process. An example is the identification of "decoherence-free subspaces", in which computation or communications may be carried out, immune to the principal sources of decoherence in the system. Here we propose and demonstrate a protocol which enables one to directly identify a DFS without carrying out a full…
We put forward a new, versatile and highly-scalable experimental setup for the realization of discrete two-dimensional quantum random walks with a single-qubit coin and tunable degree of decoherence. The proposed scheme makes use of a small number of simple optical components arranged in a multi-path Mach-Zehnder-like configuration, where a weak coherent state with average photon number of 1 is injected. Environmental effects (decoherence) are generated by a spatial light modulator, which introduces pure dephasing in the transverse spatial plane, perpendicular to the direction of propagation o…
This paper provides a general theory for characterizing and constructing a decoherence-free (DF) subsystem for an infinite dimensional linear open quantum system. The main idea is that, based on the Heisenberg picture of the dynamics rather than the commonly-taken Schrodinger picture, the notions of controllability and observability in control theory are employed to characterize a DF subsystem. A particularly useful result is a general if and only if condition for a linear system to have a DF component; this condition is used to demonstrate how to actually construct a DF dynamics in some speci…
We discuss the generation of entanglement between electronic states of two atoms in a cavity using direct quantum feedback schemes. We compare the effects of different control Hamiltonians and detection processes in the performance of entanglement production and show that the quantum-jump-based feedback proposed by us in Phys. Rev. A {\bf 76} 010301(R) (2007) can protect highly entangled states against decoherence. We provide analytical results that explain the robustness of jump feedback, and also analyse the perspectives of experimental implementation by scrutinising the effects of imperfect…
The study of environmentally induced superselection and of the process of decoherence was originally motivated by the search for the emergence of classical behavior out of the quantum substrate, in the macroscopic limit. This limit, and other simplifying assumptions, have allowed the derivation of several simple results characterizing the onset of environmentally induced superselection; but these results are increasingly often regarded as a complete phenomenological characterization of decoherence in any regime. This is not necessarily the case: The examples presented in this paper counteract …
This article analyzes the decoherence induced on a single qubit by the interaction with a spin chain with nontrivial internal dynamics (XY-type interactions). The aim of the paper is to study the existence and properties of the so-called universal regime, in which the decoherence time scale becomes independent of the strength of the coupling with the environment. It is shown that although such regime does exist, as previously established by Cucchietti \textit{et al} in {\em Phys. Rev. A}, 75:032337 (2007), it is not a clear signature of a quantum phase transition in the environment. In fact, t…
Multiparticle entanglement leads to richer correlations than two-particle entanglement and gives rise to striking contradictions with local realism, inequivalent classes of entanglement, and applications such as one-way or topological quantum computing. When exposed to decohering or dissipative environments, multiparticle entanglement yields subtle dynamical features and access to new classes of states and applications. Here, using a string of trapped ions, we experimentally characterize the dynamics of entanglement of a multiparticle state under the influence of decoherence. By embedding an e…
We study a 2-D disordered time-discrete quantum walk based on 1-D `generalized elephant quantum walk' where an entangling coin operator is assumed and which paves the way to a new set of properties. We show that considering a given disorder in one direction, it is possible to control the degree of spreading and entanglement in the other direction. This observation helps assert that the random quantum walks of this ilk serve as a controllable decoherence channel with the degree of randomness being the tunable parameter and highlight the role of dimensionality in quantum systems regarding inform…
Controlling the decoherence induced by the interaction of quantum system with its environment is a fundamental challenge in quantum technology. Utilizing Floquet theory, we explore the constructive role of temporal periodic driving in suppressing decoherence of a spin-1/2 particle coupled to a spin bath. It is revealed that, accompanying the formation of a Floquet bound state in the quasienergy spectrum of the whole system including the system and its environment, the dissipation of the spin system can be inhibited and the system tends to coherently synchronize with the driving. It can be seen…
Noise sources are ubiquitous in Nature and give rise to a description of quantum systems in terms of stochastic Hamiltonians. Decoherence dominates the noise-averaged dynamics and leads to dephasing and the decay of coherences in the eigenbasis of the fluctuating operator. For energy-diffusion processes stemming from fluctuations of the system Hamiltonian the characteristic decoherence time is shown to be proportional to the heat capacity. We analyze the decoherence dynamics of entangled CFTs and characterize the dynamics of the purity, and logarithmic negativity, that are shown to decay monot…
Quantum technology resorts to efficient utilization of quantum resources to realize technique innovation. The systems are controlled such that their states follow the desired manners to realize different quantum protocols. However, the decoherence caused by the system-environment interactions causes the states deviating from the desired manners. How to protect quantum resources under the coexistence of active control and passive decoherence is of significance. Recent studies have revealed that the decoherence is determined by the feature of the system-environment energy spectrum: Accompanying …
With improved gate calibrations reducing unitary errors, we achieve a benchmarked single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.95% with superconducting qubits in a circuit quantum electrodynamics system. We present a method for distinguishing between unitary and non-unitary errors in quantum gates by interleaving repetitions of a target gate within a randomized benchmarking sequence. The benchmarking fidelity decays quadratically with the number of interleaved gates for unitary errors but linearly for non-unitary, allowing us to separate systematic coherent errors from decoherent effects. With this protoc…
By viewing current in the detecting lead of a spintronic device as being an ensemble of flowing spins corresponding to a mixed quantum state, where each spin itself is generally described by an improper mixture generated during the transport where it couples to other degrees of freedom due to spin-orbit (SO) interactions or inhomogeneous magnetic fields, we introduce the spin density operator associated with such current expressed in terms of the spin-resolved Landauer transmission matrix of the device. This formalism, which provides complete description of coupled spin-charge quantum transpor…
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…
The uncontrolled interaction of a quantum system with its environment is detrimental for quantum coherence. In the context of solid-state qubits, techniques to mitigate the impact of fluctuating electric and magnetic fields from the environment are well-developed. In contrast, suppression of decoherence from thermal lattice vibrations is typically achieved only by lowering the temperature of operation. Here, we use a nano-electro-mechanical system (NEMS) to mitigate the effect of thermal phonons on a solid-state quantum emitter without changing the system temperature. We study the silicon-vaca…
The quantum average energy decay and the purity decay are studied for a system particle as a function of the number of constituents of a discrete bath model. The system particle is subjected to two distinct physical situations: the harmonic oscillator (HO) and the Morse potential. The environment (bath) is composed by a {\it finite} number N of uncoupled HOs, characterizing the structured bath, which in the limit $N\to\infty$ is assumed to have an ohmic, sub-ohmic or super-ohmic spectral density. For very low values of N the mean energy and purity remain constant in time but starts to decay fo…
Within the framework of the Lindblad master equation, we propose a general methodology to describe the effects of the environment on a system in dilute gas phase. The phenomenological parameters characterizing the transitions between rovibrational states of the system induced by collisions can be extracted from experimental transition kinetic constants, relying on Energy Gap fitting laws. As the availability of this kind of experimental data can be limited, the present work relied on experimental line broadening coefficients, however still using Energy Gap fitting laws. The 3 $μ$m infrared spe…
