The evolution of a quantum system is supposed to be impeded by measurement of an involved observable. This effect has been proven indistinguishable from the effect of dephasing the system's wave function, except in an individual quantum system. The coherent dynamics, on an optical E2 line, of a single trapped ion driven by light of negligible phase drift has been alternated with interrogations of the internal ion state. Retardation of the ion's nutation, equivalent to the quantum Zeno effect, is demonstrated in the statistics of sequences of probe-light scattering ''on'' and ''off'' detections, the latter representing back-action-free measurement.
A quantum system being observed evolves more slowly. This `'quantum Zeno effect'' is reviewed with respect to a previous attempt of demonstration, and to subsequent criticism of the significance of the findings. A recent experiment on an {\it individual} cold trapped ion has been capable of revealing the micro-state of this quantum system, such that the effect of measurement is indeed discriminated from dephasing of the quantum state by either the meter or the environment.
The driven evolution of the spin of an individual atomic ion on the ground-state hyperfine resonance is impeded by the observation of the ion in one of the pertaining eigenstates. Detection of resonantly scattered light identifies the ion in its upper ``bright'' state. The lower ``dark'' ion state is free of relaxation and correlated with the detector by a null signal. Null events represent the straightforward demonstration of the quantum Zeno paradox. Also, high probability of survival was demonstrated when the ion, driven by a fractionated $π$ pulse, was probed {\em and monitored} during the…
The dynamic behavior of the entanglement for two two-level atoms coupled to a common lossy cavity is studied. We find that the speed of disentanglement is a decreasing (increasing) function of the damping rate of the cavity for on/near (far-off) resonant couplings. The quantitative explanations for these phenomena are given, and further, it is shown that they are related to the quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effect induced by the non-Markovian environment.
The giant atom system is a new paradigm in quantum optics, in which the traditional dipole approximation is not available. In this paper, we construct an artificial giant atom model by coupling a superconducting circuits to a transmission line by two coupling points. In the ultrastrong coupling regime, we show that the Lamb shift of the giant atom, which is induced by the non-negligible counter-rotating atom-waveguide coupling term, will modify its dissipation process. Furthermore, we investigate quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effect where the size of the giant atom serves as a sensitive controlle…
The suppression of spin-exchange relaxation in dense alkali-metal vapors discovered in 1973 and governing modern atomic magnetometers is here reformulated in terms of quantum measurement theory and the quantum Zeno effect. This provides a new perspective of understanding decoherence in spin-polarized atomic vapors.
We analyse non-quadratic in time Zeno effect which arises when a few-atom state initially trapped between two high laser-induced barriers is briefly released to free evolution. We identify the Zeno time, analyse the energy distributions of those atoms which have escaped an remained inside the trap, and obtain a simple relation between the survival and non-escape probabilities. The relevant time scales are such that the effect would be observable for the atomic species used in current laser experiments.
The Zeno time has been calculated for a metastable two level atom tunneling through a interacting thermal magnetic field. The process of weak measurement has been utilized for the the estimation of the timescale. The temperature dependence of the Zeno time has been shown. From the calculation it is evident that the Zeno time decreases with the increase of temperature. Moreover, the result restricts the Zeno time to a maximum limiting value, irrespective of how frequent is the measurement process.
Quantum entanglement is important quanum resources in quantum information sicence. Here we propose an approach to {preparing} atomic quantum entanglement in a hybrid atom-cavity-fiber system. Using quantum Zeno dynamics method, the system evolution states are always split into a series of Zeno invariant {subspaces} consisting of dark and bright states. By choosing the initial state of the system, the bright states are all neglected and only dark states are kept to build the effective Hamiltonian. By tuning the system parameters, two-atom multiple-dimensional entanglement, two-atom Bell state, …
We report the first observation of the Quantum Zeno and Anti-Zeno effects in an unstable system. Cold sodium atoms are trapped in a far-detuned standing wave of light that is accelerated for a controlled duration. For a large acceleration the atoms can escape the trapping potential via tunneling. Initially the number of trapped atoms shows strong non-exponential decay features, evolving into the characteristic exponential decay behavior. We repeatedly measure the number of atoms remaining trapped during the initial period of non-exponential decay. Depending on the frequency of measurements we …
The quantum "Zeno" time of the 2P-1S transition of the hydrogen atom is computed and found to be approximately 3.59 10^{-15}s (the lifetime is approximately 1.595 10^{-9}s). The temporal behavior of this system is analyzed in a purely quantum field theoretical framework and is compared to the exponential decay law.
We propose a scheme for preparation of large-scale entangled $W$ states based on the fusion mechanism via quantum Zeno dynamics. By sending two atoms belonging to an $n$-atom $W$ state and an $m$-atom $W$ state, respectively, into a vacuum cavity (or two separate cavities), we may obtain a ($n+m-2$)-atom $W$ state via detecting the two-atom state after interaction. The present scheme is robust against both spontaneous emission of atoms and decay of cavity, and the feasibility analysis indicates that it can also be realized in experiment.
The accuracy of an atomic clock depends in part on the bandwidth of the relevant atomic transitions. Here we consider an ensemble of $N$ atoms whose transition frequencies have been independently perturbed by environmental effects or other factors. We consider the possibility of using the quantum Zeno effect to lock the relative phase of the atoms, which would decrease their effective bandwidth by a factor of $1/\sqrt{N}$. We analyze an example in which the quantum Zeno effect can be used to lock the relative phase of a pair of atoms, after which the elapsed time can be determined. Practical a…
Decay parameter of coherence and population inversion are calculated from the master equation of a two level atom tunneling through a squeezed vacuum. Using those parameters, the timescales for decoherence and zeno effect are calculated in the weak measurement scheme. By comparing those timescales, a certain condition has been found for sustainable coherent dynamics.
In this paper, we first demonstrate how to realize quantum state transferring (QST) from one atom to another based on quantum Zeno dynamics. Then, the QST protocol is generalized to realize the quantum state swapping (QSS) between two arbitrary atoms with the help of a third one. Furthermore, we also consider the QSS within a quantum network. The influence of decoherence is analyzed by numerical calculation. The results demonstrate that the protocols are robust against cavity decay.
We propose an interesting scheme for distributed orbital state quantum cloning with atomic ensembles based on the quantum Zeno dynamics. These atomic ensembles which consist of identical three-level atoms are trapped in distant cavities connected by a single-mode integrated optical star coupler. These qubits can be manipulated through appropriate modulation of the coupling constants between atomic ensemble and classical field, and the cavity decay can be largely suppressed as the number of atoms in the ensemble qubits increases. The fidelity of each cloned qubit can be obtained with analytic r…
By using quantum Zeno dynamics, we propose a controllable approach to deterministically generate tripartite GHZ states for three atoms trapped in spatially separated cavities. The nearest-neighbored cavities are connected via optical fibers and the atoms trapped in two ends are tunably driven. The generation of the GHZ state can be implemented by only one step manipulation, and the EPR entanglement between the atoms in two ends can be further realized deterministically by Von Neumann measurement on the middle atom. Note that the duration of the quantum Zeno dynamics is controllable by switchin…
The effect of the anti-rotating terms on the short-time evolution and the quantum Zeno (QZE) and anti-Zeno (AQZE) effects is studied for a two-level system coupled to a bosonic environment. A unitary transformation and perturbation theory are used to obtain the electron self-energy, energy shift and the enhanced QZE or the AQZE, simultaneously. The calculated Zeno time depends on the atomic transition frequency sensitively. When the atomic transition frequency is smaller than the central frequency of the spectrum of boson environment, the Zeno time is prolonged and the anti-rotating terms enha…
The so-called quantum Zeno effect is essentially a consequence of the projection postulate for ideal measurements. To test the effect Itano et al. have performed an experiment on an ensemble of atoms where rapidly repeated level measurements were realized by means of short laser pulses. Using dynamical considerations we give an explanation why the projection postulate can be applied in good approximation to such measurements. Corrections to ideal measurements are determined explicitly. This is used to discuss in how far the experiment of Itano et al. can be considered as a test of the quantum …
In this paper we study the possibility of modifying the dynamics of both quantum correlations, such as entanglement and discord, and classical correlations of an open bi-partite system by means of the quantum Zeno effect. We consider two qubits coupled to a common boson reservoir at zero temperature. This model describes, for example, two atoms interacting with a quantized mode of a lossy cavity. We show that, when the frequencies of the two atoms are symmetrically detuned from that of the cavity mode, oscillations between Zeno and anti-Zeno regimes occur. We also calculate analytically the ti…
A novel scheme is proposed for dissipative generation of maximally entanglement between two Rydberg atoms in the context of cavity QED. The spontaneous emission of atoms combined with quantum Zeno dynamics and Rydberg antiblockade guarantees a unique steady solution of the master equation of system, which just corresponds to the antisymmetric Bell state $|S\rangle$. The convergence rate is accelerated by the ground-state blockade mechanism of Rydberg atoms. Meanwhile the effect of cavity decay is suppressed by the Zeno requirement, leading to a steady-state fidelity about $90\%$ as the single-…
We propose an adiabatic passage approach to generate two atoms three- dimensional entanglement with the help of quantum Zeno dynamics in a time- dependent interacting field. The atoms are trapped in two spatially separated cavi- ties connected by a fiber, so that the individual addressing is needless. Because the scheme is based on the resonant interaction, the time required to generate entangle- ment is greatly shortened. Since the fields remain in vacuum state and all the atoms are in the ground states, the losses due to the excitation of photons and the spon- taneous transition of atoms are…
Inspired by a recent work [Reiter, Reeb, and Sørensen, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf117}, 040501 (2016)], we present a simplified proposal for dissipatively preparing a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) state of three Rydberg atoms in a cavity. The $Z$ pumping is implemented under the action of the spontaneous emission of $Λ$-type atoms and the quantum Zeno dynamics induced by strong continuous coupling. In the meantime, a dissipative Rydberg pumping breaks up the stability of the state $|{\rm GHZ}_+\rangle$ in the process of $Z$ pumping, making $|{\rm GHZ}_-\rangle$ be the unique steady state of syst…
A new mechanism is proposed for dissipatively preparing maximal Bell entangled state of two atoms in an optical cavity. This scheme integrates the spontaneous emission, the light shift of atoms in the presence of dispersive microwave field, and the quantum Zeno dynamics induced by continuous coupling, to obtain a unique steady state irrespective of initial state. Even for a large cavity decay, a high-fidelity entangled state is achievable at a short convergence time, since the occupation of cavity mode is inhibited by the Zeno requirement. Therefore, a low single-atom cooperativity $C=g^2/(κγ)…
Quantum logic operations can be implemented using nonlinear phase shifts (the Kerr effect) or the quantum Zeno effect based on strong two-photon absorption. Both approaches utilize three-level atoms, where the upper level is tuned on resonance for the Zeno gates and off-resonance for the nonlinear phase gates. The performance of nonlinear phase gates and Zeno gates are compared under conditions where the parameters of the resonant cavities and three-level atoms are the same in both cases. It is found that the expected performance is comparable for the two approaches, despite the apparent diffe…
Frequent measurements can modify the decay of an unstable quantum state with respect to the free dynamics given by Fermi's golden rule. In a landmark article, Nature 405, 546 (2000), Kofman and Kurizki concluded that in quantum decay processes, acceleration of the decay by frequent measurements, called the quantum anti-Zeno effect (AZE), appears to be ubiquitous, while its counterpart, the quantum Zeno effect, is unattainable. However, up to now there have been no experimental observations of the AZE for atomic radiative decay (spontaneous emission) in free space. In this work, making use of a…
It is shown that inverse quantum Zeno effect (IZE) may exist in a three-level system with Rabi oscillations between discrete atomic states. The experiment to observe IZE in such a system is proposed.
Quantum mechanics predicts that our physical reality is influenced by events that can potentially happen but factually do not occur. Interaction-free measurements (IFMs) exploit this counterintuitive influence to detect the presence of an object without requiring any interaction with it. Here we propose and realize an IFM concept based on an unstable many-particle system. In our experiments, we employ an ultracold gas in an unstable spin configuration which can undergo a rapid decay. The object - realized by a laser beam - prevents this decay due to the indirect quantum Zeno effect and thus, i…
This article deals with the problem of gathering information on the time evolution of a single metastable quantum system whose evolution is impeded by the quantum Zeno effect. It has been found it is in principle possible to obtain some information on the time evolution and, depending on the specific system, even to measure its average decay rate, even if the system does not undergo any evolution at all.
The quantum Zeno effect (QZE) predicts a slow-down of the time development of a system under rapidly repeated ideal measurements, and experimentally this was tested for an ensemble of atoms using short laser pulses for non-selective state measurements. Here we consider such pulses for selective measurements on a single system. Each probe pulse will cause a burst of fluorescence or no fluorescence. If the probe pulses were strictly ideal measurements, the QZE would predict periods of fluorescence bursts alternating with periods of no fluorescence (light and dark periods) which would become long…
We study one-step implementation of the Fredkin gate in a bi-modal cavity under both resonant and large detuning conditions based on quantum Zeno dynamics, which reduces the complexity of experiment operations. The influence of cavity decay and atomic spontaneous emission is discussed by numerical calculation. The results demonstrate that the fidelity and the success probability are robust against cavity decay in both models and they are also insensitive to atomic spontaneous emission in the large detuning model. In addition, the interaction time is rather short in the resonant model compared …
The entanglement witness and the entropy uncertainty are investigated by using the pseudomode theory for the open two-atom system under the quantum Zeno effect. The results show that, only when the two spectrums satisfy strong coupling with the atom, the time of entanglement witness can be prolonged and the lower bound of the entropic uncertainty can be reduced, and the entanglement can be witnessed many times. We also gave the corresponding physical explanation by the non-Markovianity. The Zeno effect not only can very effectively prolong the time of entanglement witness and reduce the lower …
We study the exact entanglement dynamics of two atoms in a lossy resonator. Besides discussing the steady-state entanglement, we show that in the strong coupling regime the system-reservoir correlations induce entanglement revivals and oscillations and propose a strategy to fight against the deterioration of the entanglement using the quantum Zeno effect.
We propose an experiment with two coupled microwave cavities and a "tunneling" photon observed by the passage of Rydberg atoms. We model the coupled cavities as in Ref. \cite{art1} and include dissipative effects as well as limited detection efficiency. We also consider realistic finite atom-field interaction times and provide for a simple analytical expression for the photon "tunneling" probability including all these effects. We show that for sufficiently small dissipation constants the effect can be observed with current experimental facilities.
The projection postulate has been used to predict a slow-down of the time evolution of the state of a system under rapidly repeated measurements, and ultimately a freezing of the state. To test this so-called quantum Zeno effect an experiment was performed by Itano et al. (Phys. Rev. A 41, 2295 (1990)) in which an atomic-level measurement was realized by means of a short laser pulse. The relevance of the results has given rise to controversies in the literature. In particular the projection postulate and its applicability in this experiment have been cast into doubt. In this paper we show anal…
In a quantum world, a watched arrow never moves. This is the Quantum Zeno Effect (QZE). Repeatedly asking a quantum system "are you still in your initial state?" blocks its coherent evolution through measurement back-action. Quantum Zeno Dynamics (QZD) leaves more freedom to the system. Instead of pinning it to a single state, it sets a border in its evolution space. Repeatedly asking the system "did you cross the border?" makes it impenetrable. Since the border can be designed at will by choosing the measured observable, QZD allows one to tailor the system's evolution space. Recent proposals,…
The fact that repeated projective measurements can slow down (the Zeno effect) or speed up (the anti-Zeno effect) quantum evolution is well-known. However, to date, studies of these effects focus on quantum systems that are weakly interacting with their environment. In this paper, we investigate what happens to a quantum system under the action of repeated measurements if the quantum system is strongly interacting with its environment. We consider as the quantum system a single two-level system coupled strongly to a collection of harmonic oscillators. A so-called polaron transformation is then…
Short pulses of a probe laser have been used in the past to measure whether a two-level atom is in its ground or excited state. The probe pulse couples the ground state to a third, auxiliary, level of the atom. Occurrence or absence of resonance fluorescence were taken to mean that the atom was found in its ground or excited state, respectively. In this paper we investigate to what extent this procedure results in an effective measurement to which the projection postulate can be applied, at least approximately. We discuss in detail the complications arising from an additional time development …
A generalized expression for weak value of dwell time in dissipative systems has been constructed using the approach of Caldirola and Montaldi. An approximate measure of Zeno time has been found taking an asymmetric double well potential. Atomic tunneling between two surfaces is taken as a practical example. The formalism can be used for any solvable potential with exact or approximate energy eigenvalues.
In this work, we study the decay behavior of a two-level system under the competing influence of a dissipative environment and repetitive measurements. The sign of the second derivative of the environmental spectral density function with respect to the system transition frequency is found to be a sufficient condition to distinguish between the quantum Zeno (negative) and the anti-Zeno (positive) effects raised by the measurements. We check our criterion for practical measurement intervals, which are larger than the conceptual Zeno time, in various environments. In particular, with the Lorentzi…
We analyze the quantum Zeno dynamics that takes place when a field stored in a cavity undergoes frequent interactions with atoms. We show that repeated measurements or unitary operations performed on the atoms probing the field state confine the evolution to tailored subspaces of the total Hilbert space. This confinement leads to non-trivial field evolutions and to the generation of interesting non-classical states, including mesoscopic field state superpositions. We elucidate the main features of the quantum Zeno mechanism in the context of a state-of-the-art cavity quantum electrodynamics ex…
The usual semiclassical approximation for atom-field dynamics consists in substituting the field operators by complex numbers related to the (supposedly large enough) intensity of the field. We show that a semiclassical evolution for coupled systems can always be obtained by frequent Zeno-like measurements on the state of one subsystems, independently of the field intensity in the example given. We study the Jaynes Cummings model from this perspective.
We propose a selfconsistent quantum mechanical approach to study the dynamics of a two-level system subject to random time evolution. This randomness gives rise to competing effects between dissipative and non-dissipative decoherence with a consequent slow down of the atomic decay rate.
We discuss a proposal for the efficient generation of the maximally entangled atomic N-GHZ state in a spinor-1 condensate by driving internal state atomic Raman transitions using (classical) laser fields. We illustrate the dynamics in terms of a quantum Zeno subspace, and identify the resultant atomic elastic collision in facilitating the deterministic entanglement creation. Our proposal can be readily implemented in several laboratories where ferromagnetic spinor condensates (of $^{87}$Rb atoms) are investigated.
We demonstrated that final states of ultracold scattering between atom and molecule can be selectively produced using dynamic magnetic fields of multiple frequencies. The mechanism of the dynamic magnetic field control is based on a generalized quantum Zeno effect for the selected scattering channels. In particular, we use an atom-molecule spin flip scattering to show that the transition to the selected final spin projection of the molecule in the inelastic scattering can be suppressed by dynamic modulation of coupling between the Floquet engineered initial and final states.
We show that atomic spin motion can be controlled by circularly polarized light without light absorption in the strong pumping limit. In this limit, the pumping light, which drives the empty spin state, destroys the Zeeman coherence effectively and freezes the coherent transition via the quantum Zeno effect. It is verified experimentally that the amount of light absorption decreases asymptotically to zero as the incident light intensity is increased.
Quantum logic gates for photonic qubits can be implemented using the quantum Zeno effect based on strong two-photon absorption. The fidelity of quantum Zeno gates of this kind may be substantially reduced by photon loss. Heralding on those outcomes in which both of the logical qubits emerge from the Zeno gate can increase the fidelity at the expense of a limited success rate (P.M. Leung et al., Phys. Rev. A 74, 062325 (2006)). We analyze the performance of heralded quantum Zeno gates by solving Schrodinger's equation for a system of photons coupled to three-level atoms. This approach identifie…
We prove the Zeno limit $N^{3/2}$ of the quantum Fisher information for frequency estimation with a general initial state of $N$ two-level atoms in the presence of local non-Markovian dephasing noise, which was demonstrated for a GHZ state by A. W. Chin, S. F. Huelga, M. B. Plenio (2012). For collective dephasing we prove that non-Markovian noise allows for better scaling for both correlated and uncorelated states. The quantum enhancement in precision is at least as good as in the local case.
We show that nonlinear interactions induce both the Zeno and anti-Zeno effects in the generalised Bose-Josephson model (with the on-site interactions and the second-order tunneling) describing Bose-Einstein condensate in double-well trap subject to particle removal from one of the wells. We find that the on-site interactions induce \textit{only} the Zeno effect, which appears at long evolution times, whereas the second-order tunneling leads to a strong decay of the atomic population at short evolution times, reminiscent of the anti-Zeno effect, and destroys the nonlinear Zeno effect due to the…
The quantum measurement problem, namely how the deterministic quantum evolution leads to probabilistic measurement outcomes, remains a profound question to be answered. In the present work, we propose a spectacular demonstration and test of the subtle and peculiar character of the quantum measurement process. We show that a bright soliton supported by a Bose-Einstein condensate can be reflected as a whole by an electron beam, with neither attraction nor repulsion between the condensate's neutral atoms and the beam's electrons. This macroscopic reflection is purely due to the quantum Zeno dynam…
We study the decay dynamics of a two-level giant atom that is coupled to a waveguide with time-dependent coupling strengths. In the non-Markovian regime where the retardation effect cannot be ignored, we show that the dynamics of the atom depends on the atom-waveguide coupling strengths at an earlier time. This allows one to tailor the decay dynamics of the giant atom and even realize a stationary population revival with appropriate coupling modulations. Moreover, we demonstrate the possibility of simulating the quantum Zeno and quantum anti-Zeno effects in the giant-atom model with periodic c…
The quantum Zeno effect (QZE) is the striking prediction that the decay of any unstable quantum state can be inhibited by sufficiently frequent observations (measurements). The consensus opinion has upheld the QZE as a general feature of quantum mechanics, which should lead to the inhibition of any decay. The claim of QZE generality hinges on the assumption that successive observations can in principle be made at time intervals too short for the system to change appreciably. However, this assumption and the generality of the QZE have scarcely been investigated thus far. We have addressed these…
We report on experiments exploring the non-Hermitian dynamics of pairs of two-level atoms tightly confined in an optical lattice and driven by a near-resonant laser. Although spontaneous emission is negligible for the long-lived excited state, two-body dissipation arises from strong inelastic collisions between two atoms in the excited state. We demonstrate quasi-adiabatic control of the internal state of the pairs in the quantum Zeno regime where inelastic losses dominate. Preparing each atom pair in the longest-lived eigenstate of the non-Hermitian Hamiltonian describing the dissipative dyna…
We propose a new methodology, namely "quantum Zeno blockade," for managing light scattering at a few-photon level in general nonlinear-optical media, such as crystals, fibers, silicon microrings, and atomic vapors. Using this tool, antibunched emission of photon pairs can be achieved, leading to potent quantum-optics applications such as deterministic entanglement generation without the need for heralding. In a practical implementation using an on-chip toroidal microcavity immersed in rubidium vapor, we estimate that high-fidelity entangled photons can be produced on-demand at MHz rates or hig…
We present and analyze a toolbox for the controlled manipulation of ultracold polar molecules, consisting of detection of molecules, atom-molecule entanglement, and engineering of dissipative dynamics. Our setup is based on fast chemical reactions between molecules and atoms leading to a quantum Zeno-based collisional blockade in the system. We demonstrate that the experimental parameters for achieving high fidelities can be found using a straightforward numerical optimization. We exemplify our approach for a system comprised of NaK molecules and Na atoms and we discuss the consequences of res…
We discuss an implementation of Quantum Zeno Dynamics in a Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics experiment. By performing repeated unitary operations on atoms coupled to the field, we restrict the field evolution in chosen subspaces of the total Hilbert space. This procedure leads to promising methods for tailoring non-classical states. We propose to realize `tweezers' picking a coherent field at a point in phase space and moving it towards an arbitrary final position without affecting other non-overlapping coherent components. These effects could be observed with a state-of-the-art apparatus.
The protection of the coherence of open quantum systems against the influence of their environment is a very topical issue. A scheme is proposed here which protects a general quantum system from the action of a set of arbitrary uncontrolled unitary evolutions. This method draws its inspiration from ideas of standard error-correction (ancilla adding, coding and decoding) and the Quantum Zeno Effect. A pedagogical demonstration of our method on a simple atomic system, namely a Rubidium isotope, is proposed.
