We present a nonlinear decoherence model which models decoherence effect caused by various decohereing sources in a quantum system through a nonlinear coupling between the system and its environment, and apply it to investigating decoherence in nonclassical motional states of a single trapped ion. We obtain an exactly analytic solution of the model and find very good agreement with experimental results for the population decay rate of a single trapped ion observed in the NIST experiments by Meekhof and coworkers (D. M. Meekhof, {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 76}, 1796 (1996)).
To protect a quantum system from decoherence due to interaction with its environment, we investigate the existence of initial states of the environment allowing for decoherence-free evolution of the system. For models in which a two-state system interacts with a dynamical environment, we prove that such states exist if and only if the interaction and self-evolution Hamiltonians share an eigenstate. If decoherence by state preparation is not possible, we show that initial states minimizing decoherence result from a delicate compromise between the environment and interaction dynamics.
The decoherence in trapped ion induced by coupling the ion to the engineered reservoir is studied in this paper. The engineered reservoir is simulated by random variations in the trap frequency, and the trapped ion is treated as a two-level system driven by a far off-resonant plane wave laser field. The dependence of the decoherence rate on the amplitude of the superposition state is given.
The decoherence of nonclassical motional states of a trapped $^9 {\rm Be^+}$ ion in a recent experiment is investigated theoretically. Sources of decoherence considered here destroy the characteristic coherent quantum dynamics of the system but do not cause energy dissipation. Here they are first introduced phenomenologically and then described using a microscopic Hamiltonian formulation. Theoretical predictions are compared to experimental results.
The control of thermal decoherence via dynamical decoupling and via the quantum Zeno effect (Zeno control) is investigated for a model of trapped ion, where the dynamics of two low lying hyperfine states undergoes decoherence due to the thermal interaction with an excited state. Dynamical decoupling is a procedure that consists in periodically driving the excited state, while the Zeno control consists in frequently measuring it. When the control frequency is high enough, decoherence is shown to be suppressed. Otherwise, both controls may accelerate decoherence.
We consider interactions that generate a universal set of quantum gates on logical qubits encoded in a collective-dephasing-free subspace, and discuss their implementations with trapped ions. This allows for the removal of the by-far largest source of decoherence in current trapped-ion experiments, collective dephasing. In addition, an explicit parametrization of all two-body Hamiltonians able to generate such gates without the system's state ever exiting the protected subspace is provided.
Quantum information technologies require careful control for generating and preserving a desired target quantum state. The biggest practical obstacle is, of course, decoherence. Therefore, the reachability analysis, which in our scenario aims to estimate the distance between the controlled state under decoherence and the target state, is of great importance to evaluate the realistic performance of those technologies. This paper presents a lower bound of the fidelity-based distance for a general open Markovian quantum system driven by the decoherence process and several types of control includi…
We propose a decoherence-free subspaces (DFS) scheme to realize scalable quantum computation with trapped ions. The spin-dependent Coulomb interaction is exploited, and the universal set of unconventional geometric quantum gates is achieved in encoded subspaces that are immune from decoherence by collective dephasing. The scalability of the scheme for the ion array system is demonstrated, either by an adiabatic way of switching on and off the interactions, or by a fast gate scheme with comprehensive DFS encoding and noise decoupling techniques.
We propose a feasible scheme to achieve holonomic quantum computation in a decoherence-free subspace (DFS) with trapped ions. By the application of appropriate bichromatic laser fields on the designated ions, we are able to construct two noncommutable single-qubit gates and one controlled-phase gate using the holonomic scenario in the encoded DFS.
We study the entanglement between the 2D vibrational motion and two ground state hyperfine levels of a trapped ion, Under particular conditions this entanglement depends on the parity of the total initial vibrational quanta. We study the robustness of this quantum coherence effect with respect to the presence of non-dissipative sources of decoherence, and of an imperfect initial state preparation.
We propose a geometric phase gate in a decoherence-free subspace with trapped ions. The quantum information is encoded in the Zeeman sublevels of the ground-state and two physical qubits to make up one logical qubit with ultra long coherence time. Single- and two-qubit operations together with the transport and splitting of linear ion crystals allow for a robust and decoherence-free scalable quantum processor. For the ease of the phase gate realization we employ one Raman laser field on four ions simultaneously, i.e. no tight focus for addressing. The decoherence-free subspace is left neither …
We present a universal algorithm for an efficient deterministic preparation of an arbitrary two--mode bosonic state. In particular, we discuss in detail preparation of entangled states of a two-dimensional vibrational motion of a trapped ion via a sequence of laser stimulated Raman transitions. Our formalism can be generalized for multi-mode bosonic fields. We examine stability of our algorithm with respect to a technical noise.
Heralded entanglement between collective excitations in two atomic ensembles is probabilistically generated, stored, and converted to single photon fields. By way of the concurrence, quantitative characterizations are reported for the scaling behavior of entanglement with excitation probability and for the temporal dynamics of various correlations resulting in the decay of entanglement. A lower bound of the concurrence for the collective atomic state of 0.9\pm 0.3 is inferred. The decay of entanglement as a function of storage time is also observed, and related to the local dynamics.
We propose a simple technique for the generation of arbitrary-sized Dicke states in a chain of trapped ions. The method uses global addressing of the entire chain by two pairs of delayed but partially overlapping laser pulses to engineer a collective adiabatic passage along a multi-ion dark state. Our technique, which is a many-particle generalization of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), is decoherence-free with respect to spontaneous emission and robust against moderate fluctuations in the experimental parameters. Furthermore, because the process is very rapid, the effects of heati…
Analysis of the effects of decoherence on the radiative and squeezing properties of a coherently driven two-level atom trapped in a resonant cavity applying the corresponding master equation is presented. The atomic dynamics as well as the squeezing and statistical properties of the emitted radiation are investigated. It is found that the atom stays in the lower energy level more often at steady state irrespective of the strength of the coherent radiation and thermal fluctuations entering the cavity. Moreover, a strong external coherent radiation results the splitting of the line of the emissi…
We propose a scheme to perform basic gates of quantum computing and prepare entangled states in a system with cold trapped ions located in a single mode optical cavity. General quantum computing can be made with both motional state of the trapped ion and cavity state being qubits. We can also generate different kinds of entangled states in such a system without state reduction, and can transfer quantum states from the ion in one trap to the ion in another trap. Experimental requirement for achieving our scheme is discussed.
Using simple physical arguments we investigate the capabilities of a quantum computer based on cold trapped ions. From the limitations imposed on such a device by spontaneous decay, laser phase coherence, ion heating and other sources of error, we derive a bound between the number of laser interactions and the number of ions that may be used. The largest number which may be factored using a variety of species of ion is determined.
We present a protocol to prepare decoherence free cluster states using ultracold atoms loaded in a two dimensional superlattice. The superlattice geometry leads to an array of 2*2 plaquettes, each of them holding four spin-1/2 particles that can be used for encoding a single logical qubit in the two-fold singlet subspace, insensitive to uniform magnetic field fluctuations in any direction. Dynamical manipulation of the supperlattice yields distinct inter and intra plaquette interactions and permits to realize one qubit and two qubit gates with high fidelity, leading to the generation of univer…
In its simplest form, decoherence occurs when a quantum state is entangled with a second state, but the results of measurements made on the second state are not accessible. As the second state has effectively "measured" the first, in this paper we argue that the quantum Fisher information is the relevant metric for predicting and quantifying this kind of decoherence. The quantum Fisher information is usually used to determine an upper bound on how precisely measurements on a state can be used to estimate a classical parameter, and as such it is an important resource. Quantum enhanced metrology…
We investigate the mechanism of damping and heating of trapped ions associated with the polarization of the residual background gas induced by the oscillating ions themselves. Reasoning by analogy with the physics of surface electrons in liquid helium, we demonstrate that the decay of Rabi oscillations observed in experiments on 9Be+ can be attributed to the polarization phenomena investigated here. The measured sensitivity of the damping of Rabi oscillations with respect to the vibrational quantum number of a trapped ion is also predicted in our polarization model.
We have proposed a simple scheme to entangle two distant qutrits trapped in separate optical cavities. The quantum information of each qutrit is skillfully encoded on the degenerate ground states of a pair of atoms, hence the entanglement between them is relatively stable against spontaneous emission. In Lamb-Dicke limits, it is not necessary to require coincidence detections, which will relax the conditions for the experimental realization. The scheme is robust against the inefficient detections.
We implement all single-qubit operations with fidelities significantly above the minimum threshold required for fault-tolerant quantum computing, using a trapped-ion qubit stored in hyperfine "atomic clock" states of $^{43}$Ca$^+$. We measure a combined qubit state preparation and single-shot readout fidelity of 99.93%, a memory coherence time of $T^*_2=50$ seconds, and an average single-qubit gate fidelity of 99.9999%. These results are achieved in a room-temperature microfabricated surface trap, without the use of magnetic field shielding or dynamic decoupling techniques to overcome technica…
We report adiabatic passage experiments with a single trapped $^{40}$Ca$^+$ ion. By applying a frequency chirped laser pulse with a Gaussian amplitude envelope we reach a transfer efficiency of 0.990(10) on an optical transition from the electronic ground state S$_{1/2}$ to the metastable state D$_{5/2}$. This transfer method is shown to be insensitive to the accurate setting of laser parameters, and therefore is suitable as a robust tool for ion based quantum computing.
We analyse the effects of intrinsic decoherence on the probability of generating a tripartite GHZ state using a cool trapped ion coupled to a single mode of the cavity field and interacting with a resonant laser field. Milburn equation is solved for this tripartite system to obtain the time evolution of density matrix as a function of cavity-ion coupling, laser-ion coupling, and the size of unitary time step relative to the time scale determined by system parameters. Starting with the system prepared initially in a separable state, density matrix is used to calculate the probability of tripart…
We analyze collisional decoherence of atoms or molecules prepared in a coherent superposition of nondegenerate internal states at ultralow temperatures and placed in an ultracold buffer gas. Our analysis is applicable for an arbitrary bath particle/tracer particle mass ratio. Both elastic and inelastic collisions contribute to decoherence. We obtain an expression relating the observable decoherence rate to pairwise scattering properties, specifically the low-temperature scattering amplitudes. We consider the dependence on the bath particle/tracer particle mass ratio for the case of light bath …
We investigate the non-dissipative decoherence of three qubit system obtained by manipulating the state of a trapped two-level ion coupled to an optical cavity. Modelling the environment as a set of noninteracting harmonic oscillators, analytical expressions for the state operator of tripartite composite system, the probability of generating maximally entangled GHZ state, and the population inversion have been obtained. The pointer observable is the energy of the isolated quantum system. Coupling to environment results in exponential decay of off diagonal matrix elements of the state operator …
We propose protocols to prepare highly excited energy eigenstates of a trapped ion in a harmonic trap which do not require laser pulses to induce transitions among internal levels. Instead the protocols rely on smoothly deforming the trapping potential between single and double well configurations. The speed of the changes is set to minimize non-adiabatic transitions by keeping the adiabaticity parameter constant. High fidelities are found for times more than two orders of magnitude smaller than with linear ramps of the control parameter. Deformation protocols are also devised to prepare super…
We describe and analyse numerically schemes (i) for entangling orthogonal motional modes of one or a few harmonically-trapped atoms or ions, and (ii) for transferring the entanglement from one of these local modes to a distant trapped atom (or atoms) via a light-mediated quantum state transfer procedure proposed in previous work [A.S. Parkins and H.J. Kimble, J. Opt. B: Quantum Semiclass. Opt. 1, 496 (1999)]. Possibilities arising from these schemes include the generation of an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen state in the positions and momenta of distantly-separated trapped atoms and the preparation o…
The cause of decoherence in a quantum system can be traced back to the interaction with the environment. As it has been pointed out first by Dicke, in a system of N two-level atoms where each of the atoms is individually dipole coupled to the environment, there are collective, subradiant states, that have no dipole coupling to photon modes, and therefore they are expected to decay slower. This property also implies that these type of states, which form an N-1 dimensional subspace of the atomic subsytem, also decohere slower. We propose a scheme which will create such states. First the two-leve…
We show that trapped ions can be used to simulate a highly symmetrical Hamiltonian with eingenstates naturally protected against local sources of decoherence. This Hamiltonian involves long range coupling between particles and provides a more efficient protection than nearest neighbor models discussed in previous works. Our results open the perspective of experimentally realizing in controlled atomic systems, complex entangled states with decoherence times up to nine orders of magnitude longer than isolated quantum systems.
We measure and characterize anomalous motional decoherence of an atomic ion confined in the lowest quantum levels of a novel rf ion trap that features moveable electrodes. The scaling of decoherence rate with electrode proximity is measured, and when the electrodes are cooled from 300 K to 150 K, the decoherence rate is suppressed by an order of magnitude. This provides direct evidence that anomalous motional decoherence of trapped ions stems from microscopic noisy potentials on the electrodes. These observations are relevant to quantum information processing schemes using trapped ions or othe…
Quantum repeaters provide an efficient solution to distribute Bell pairs over arbitrarily long distances. While scalable architectures are demanding regarding the number of qubits that need to be controlled, here we present a quantum repeater scheme aiming to extend the range of present day quantum communications that could be implemented in the near future with trapped ions in cavities. We focus on an architecture where ion-photon entangled states are created locally and subsequently processed with linear optics to create elementary links of ion-ion entangled states. These links are then used…
The dominant error sources for state-of-the-art laser-free trapped-ion entangling gates are decoherence of the qubit state and the ion motion. The effect of these decoherence mechanisms can be suppressed with additional control fields, or with techniques that have the disadvantage of reducing gate speed. Here, we propose using a near-motional-frequency magnetic field gradient to implement a laser-free gate that is simultaneously resilient to both types of decoherence, does not require additional control fields, and has a relatively small cost in gate speed.
We investigate the problem of factorization of large numbers on a quantum computer which we imagine to be realized within a linear ion trap. We derive upper bounds on the size of the numbers that can be factorized on such a quantum computer. These upper bounds are independent of the power of the applied laser. We investigate two possible ways to implement qubits, in metastable optical transitions and in Zeeman sublevels of a stable ground state, and show that in both cases the numbers that can be factorized are not large enough to be of practical interest. We also investigate the effect of qua…
We demonstrate long-lived coherence in internal hyperfine states of a single \Ca{43} trapped-ion qubit $[T_2=1.2(2)\s]$, and in external motional states of a single \Ca{40} trapped-ion qubit $[T_2'=0.18(4)\s]$, in the same apparatus. The motional decoherence rate is consistent with the heating rate, which was measured to be 3(1) quanta/sec. Long coherence times in the external motional states are essential for performing high-fidelity quantum logic gates between trapped-ion qubits. The internal-state $T_2$ time that we observe in \Ca{43}, which has not previously been used as a trapped-ion qub…
The main obstacle for coherent control of open quantum systems is decoherence due to different dissipation channels and the inability to precisely control experimental parameters. To overcome these problems we propose to use dissipation-assisted adiabatic passages. These are relatively fast processes where the presence of spontaneous decay rates corrects for errors due to non-adiabaticity while the system remains in a decoherence-free state and behaves as predicted for an adiabatic passage. As a concrete example we present a scheme to entangle atoms by moving them in and out of an optical cavi…
Suppressing undesired nonunitary effects is a major challenge in quantum computation and quantum control. In this work, by considering the adiabatic dynamics in presence of a surrounding environment, we theoretically and experimentally analyze the robustness of adiabaticity in open quantum systems. More specifically, by considering a decohering scenario, we exploit the validity conditions of the adiabatic approximation as well as its sensitiveness to the resonance situation, which typically harm adiabaticity in closed systems. As an illustration, we implement an oscillating Landau-Zener Hamilt…
We report on a procedure by which we obtain a 91% loading efficiency of single 85Rb atoms in an optical microtrap. This can be achieved within a total preparation time of 542 ms. We employ blue detuned light assisted collisions to realize a process in which only one of the collision partners is lost. We explain the mechanism for efficiently loading a single atom and discuss the factors that limit the final efficiency.
We present protocols for dissipative entanglement of three trapped-ion qubits and discuss a scheme that uses sympathetic cooling as the dissipation mechanism. This scheme relies on tailored destructive interference to generate any one of six entangled W states in a three-ion qubit space. Using a beryllium-magnesium ion crystal as an example system, we theoretically investigate the protocol's performance and the effects of likely error sources, including thermal secular motion of the ion crystal, calibration imperfections, and spontaneous photon scattering. We estimate that a fidelity of $\sim$…
The Fermi edge singularity and the Anderson orthogonality catastrophe describe the universal physics which occurs when a Fermi sea is locally quenched by the sudden switching of a scattering potential, leading to a brutal disturbance of its ground state. We demonstrate that the effect can be seen in the controllable domain of ultracold trapped gases by providing an analytic description of the out-of-equilibrium response to an atomic impurity, both at zero and at finite temperature. Furthermore, we link the transient behavior of the gas to the decoherence of the impurity, and, in particular to …
In this paper, we study the fast and noise-resistant population transfer, quantum entangled states preparation, and quantum entangled states' transition by constructing the shortcuts to adiabatic passage (STAP) for multiparticle based on the approach of "Lewis-Riesenfeld invariants" in distant cavity quantum electronic dynamics (QED) system. Numerical simulation demonstrates that all of the schemes are fast and robust against the decoherence caused by atomic spontaneous emission and photon leakage. Moreover, not only the total operation time but also the robustness in each scheme against decoh…
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…
We study theoretically the possibilities of coupling the quantum mechanical motion of a trapped charged particle (e.g. ion or electron) to quantum degrees of freedom of superconducting devices, nano-mechanical resonators and quartz bulk acoustic wave resonators. For each case, we estimate the coupling rate between the charged particle and its macroscopic counterpart and compare it to the decoherence rate, i.e. the rate at which quantum superposition decays. A hybrid system can only be considered quantum if the coupling rate significantly exceeds all decoherence rates. Our approach is to examin…
We present a detailed analysis and design of a neutral atom quantum logic device based on atoms in optical traps interacting via dipole-dipole coupling of Rydberg states. The dominant physical mechanisms leading to decoherence and loss of fidelity are enumerated. Our results support the feasibility of performing single and two-qubit gates at MHz rates with decoherence probability and fidelity errors at the level of $10^{-3}$ for each operation. Current limitations and possible approaches to further improvement of the device are discussed.
We present a proposal for protecting states against decoherence, based on the engineering of pointer states. We apply this procedure to the vibrational motion of a trapped ion, and show how to protect qubits, squeezed states, approximate phase eigenstates and superpositions of coherent states.
We present an experiment of preparing Werner state via spontaneous parametric down-conversion and controlled decoherence of photons in this paper. In this experiment two independent BBO (beta-barium borate) crystals are used to produce down-conversion light beams, which are mixed to prepare Werner state.
We present a scheme utilizing position-dependent ac Stark shifts for doing quantum logic with trapped ions. By a proper choice of direction, position and size, as well as power and frequency of a far-off-resonant Gaussian laser beam, specific ac Stark shifts can be assigned to the individual ions, making them distinguishable in frequency-space. In contrast to previous all-optical based quantum gates with trapped ions, the present scheme enables individual addressing of single ions and selective addressing of any pair of ions for two-ion quantum gates, without using tightly focused laser beams.…
We prepare and detect the hyperfine state of a single 87Rb atom coupled to a fiber-based high finesse cavity on an atom chip. The atom is extracted from a Bose-Einstein condensate and trapped at the maximum of the cavity field, resulting in a reproducibly strong atom-cavity coupling. We use the cavity reflection and transmission signal to infer the atomic hyperfine state with a fidelity exceeding 99.92% in a read-out time of 100 microseconds. The atom is still trapped after detection.
A universal algorithm for a deterministic preparation of arbitrary three--mode bosonic states is introduced. In particular, we consider preparation of entangled quantum states of a vibrational motion of an ion confined in a 3D trapping potential. The target states are established after a proper sequence of laser stimulated Raman transitions. Stability of the algorithm with respect to a technical noise is discussed and the distance (fidelity) of outputs with respect to target states is studied.
A recently developed theory for eliminating decoherence and design constraints in quantum computers, ``encoded recoupling and decoupling'', is shown to be fully compatible with a promising proposal for an architecture enabling scalable ion-trap quantum computation [D. Kielpinski et al., Nature 417, 709 (2002)]. Logical qubits are encoded into pairs of ions. Logic gates are implemented using the Sorensen-Molmer (SM) scheme applied to pairs of ions at a time. The encoding offers continuous protection against collective dephasing. Decoupling pulses, that are also implemented using the SM scheme d…
We present a quantum interference approach to preserve coherence in the external states of an atom trapped in an optical lattice. We show that this is possible by suitably choosing the initial state of the atom. We demonstrate this in context of decoherence due to spontaneous emission in an one-dimensional optical double-well lattice.
Quantum computing gates are proposed to apply on trapped ions in decoherence-free states. As phase changes due to time evolution of components with different eigenenergies of quantum superposition are completely frozen, quantum computing based on this model would be perfect. Possible application of our scheme in future ion-trap quantum computer is discussed.
