Quantum information processing (QIP) requires thorough assessment of decoherence. Atoms or ions prepared for QIP often become addressed by radiation within schemes of alternating microwave-optical double resonance. A well-defined amount of decoherence may be applied to the system when spurious resonance light is admitted simultaneously with the driving radiation. This decoherence is quantified in terms of longitudinal and transversal relaxation. It may serve for calibrating observed decoherence as well as for testing error-correcting quantum codes.
Using the numerical path integral method we investigate the decoherence and relaxation of qubits in spin-boson (SB) and spin-intermediate harmonic oscillator (IHO)-bath (SIB) models. The cases that the environment baths with low and medium frequencies are investigated. It is shown that the qubits in SB and SIB models have the same decoherence and relaxation as the baths with low frequencies. However, the qubits in the two models have different decoherence and relaxation as the baths with medium frequencies. The decoherence and relaxation of the qubit in SIB model can be modulated through chang…
Using the numerical path integral method we investigate the decoherence and relaxation of qubits coupled to an Ohmic bath directly and via an intermediate harmonic oscillator (IHO). Here, we suppose the oscillation frequencies of the bath modes are higher than the IHO's. When we choose suitable parameters the qubits in the two models may have almost same decoherence and relaxation times. However, the decoherence and relaxation times of the qubit in the qubit-IHO-bath model can be modulated through changing the coupling coefficients of the qubit-IHO and IHO-bath and the oscillation frequency of…
We describe our recent results on the resonant perturbation theory of decoherence and relaxation for quantum system with many qubits. The approach represents a rigorous analysis of the phenomenon of decoherence and relaxation for general $N$-level systems coupled to reservoirs of the bosonic fields. We derive a representation of the reduced dynamics valid for all times $t\geq 0$ and for small but fixed interaction strength. Our approach does not involve master equation approximations and applies to a wide variety of systems which are not explicitly solvable.
We demonstrate in a very general fashion, considerable slowing down of decoherence and relaxation by fast frequency modulation of the system heat bath coupling. The slowing occurs as the decoherence rates are now determined by the spectral components of bath correlations which are shifted due to fast modulation. We present several examples including the slowing down of the heating of a trapped ion, where the system - bath interaction is not necessarily Markovian.
We consider a network of interacting resonators and analyze the physical ingredients that enable the emergence of relaxation-free and decoherence-free subspaces. We investigate two different situations: i) when the whole network interacts with a common reservoir and ii) when each resonator, strongly coupled to each other, interacts with its own reservoir. Our main result is that both subspaces are generated when all the resonators couple with the same group of reservoir modes, thus building up a correlation (among these modes), which has the potential to shield particular network states agains…
The linear and quadratic interactions of an impurity vibrational mode coupled with a heat bath are investigated with a non-Markovian equation of motion for the reduced density matrix valid for the initial, intermediate and kinetic stages of relaxation. The evolution of the superpositional states is considered for all cases.
We study the reduced dynamics of interacting spins, each coupled to its own bath of bosons. We derive the solution in analytic form in the white-noise limit and analyze the rich behaviors in diverse limits ranging from weak coupling and/or low temperature to strong coupling and/or high temperature. We also view the one spin as being coupled to a spin-boson environment and consider the regimes in which it is effectively nonlinear, and in which it can be regarded as a resonant bosonic environment.
Relaxation effects impose fundamental limitations on our ability to coherently control quantum mechanical phenomena. In this letter, we establish physical limits on how closely can a quantum mechanical system be steered to a desired target state in the presence of relaxation. In particular, we explicitly compute the maximum coherence or polarization that can be transferred between coupled nuclear spins in the presence of very general decoherence mechanisms that include cross-correlated relaxation. We give analytical expressions for the control laws (pulse sequences) which achieve these physica…
We study the decoherence and the relaxation dynamics of topological states in an extended class of quantum Ising chains which can present a manyfold ground state subspace. The leading interaction of the spins with the environment is assumed to be the local fluctuations of the transverse magnetic field. By deriving the Lindblad equation using the many-body states, we investigate the relation between decoherence, energy relaxation and topology. In particular, in the topological phase and at low temperature, we analyze the dephasing rates between the different degenerate ground states.
We study the dynamics of a quantum spin ensemble controlled by trains of ultrashort pulses. To model disturbances of the kicks, we consider that the spins are submitted to different kick trains which follow regular, random, stochastic or chaotic dynamical processes. These are described by dynamical systems on a torus. We study the quantum decoherence and the population relaxation of the spin ensemble induced by these classical dynamical processes disturbing the kick trains. For chaotic kick trains we show that the decoherence and the relaxation processes exhibit a signature of chaos directly r…
The reduced dynamics of an atomic qubit coupled both to its own quantized center of mass motion through the spatial mode functions of the electromagnetic field, as well as the vacuum modes, is calculated in the influence functional formalism. The formalism chosen can describe the entangled non-Markovian evolution of the system with a full account of the coherent back-action of the environment on the qubit. We find a slight increase in the decoherence due to the quantized center of mass motion and give a condition on the mass and qubit resonant frequency for which the effect is important. In op…
We study the dynamics of quantum and classical correlations in the presence of nondissipative decoherence. We discover a class of initial states for which the quantum correlations, quantified by the quantum discord, are not destroyed by decoherence for times t < \bar{t}. In this initial time interval classical correlations decay. For t > \bar{t}, on the other hand, classical correlations do not change in time and only quantum correlations are lost due to the interaction with the environment. Therefore, at the transition time \bar{t} the open system dynamics exhibits a sudden transition from cl…
Current and near term quantum computers (i.e. NISQ devices) are limited in their computational power in part due to qubit decoherence. Here we seek to take advantage of qubit decoherence as a resource in simulating the behavior of real world quantum systems, which are always subject to decoherence, with no additional computational overhead. As a first step toward this goal we simulate the thermal relaxation of quantum beats in radical ion pairs (RPs) on a quantum computer as a proof of concept of the method. We present three methods for implementing the thermal relaxation, one which explicitly…
We study theoretically the phonon-induced relaxation and decoherence of spin states of two electrons in a lateral double quantum dot in a SiGe/Si/SiGe heterostructure. We consider two types of singlet-triplet spin qubits and calculate their relaxation and decoherence times, in particular as a function of level hybridization, temperature, magnetic field, spin orbit interaction, and detuning between the quantum dots, using Bloch-Redfield theory. We show that the magnetic field gradient, which is usually applied to operate the spin qubit, may reduce the relaxation time by more than an order of ma…
The exact dynamics of a Jaynes-Cummings model for a qubit interacting with a continuous distribution of bosons, characterized by a special form of the spectral density, is evaluated analytically. The special reservoir is designed to induce anomalous decoherence, resulting in an inverse power law relaxation, of power 3/2, over an evaluated long time scale. If compared to the exponential-like relaxation obtained from the original Jaynes-Cummings model for Lorentzian-type spectral density functions, decoherence is strongly suppressed. The special reservoir exhibits an upper band edge frequency co…
Long-range quantum communication for spin qubits is an important open problem. Here we study decoherence of an electron spin qubit that is being transported in a moving quantum dot. We focus on spin decoherence due to spin-orbit interaction and a random electric potential. We find that at the lowest order, the motion induces longitudinal spin relaxation, with a rate linear in the dot velocity. Our calculated spin relaxation time ranges from sub $μ$s in GaAs to above ms in Si, making this relaxation a significant decoherence channel. Our results also give clear indications on how to reduce the …
We perform a first- principles derivation of the general master equation to study the non-Markovian dynamics of a two-level atom (2LA) interacting with an electromagnetic field (EMF). We use the influence functional method which can incorporate the full backreaction of the field on the atom, while adopting Grassmannian variables for the 2LA and the coherent state representation for the EMF. We find exact master equations for the cases of a free quantum field and a cavity field in the vacuum. In response to the search for mechanisms to preserve maximal coherence in quantum computations in ion t…
We study the non-Markovian dynamics of a qubit made up of a two-level atom interacting with an electromagnetic field (EMF) initially at finite temperature. Unlike most earlier studies where the bath is assumed to be fixed, we study the coherent evolution of the combined qubit-EMF system, thus allowing for the back-action from the bath on the qubit and the qubit on the bath in a self-consistent manner. In this way we can see the development of quantum correlations and entanglement between the system and its environment, and how that affects the decoherence and relaxation of the system. We find …
Relaxation of a two-level system (TLS) into a resonant infinite-temperature reservoir with a Lorentzian spectrum is studied. The reservoir is described by a complex Gaussian-Markovian field coupled to the nondiagonal elements of the TLS Hamiltonian. The theory can be relevant for electromagnetic interactions in microwave high-$Q$ cavities and muon spin depolarization. Analytical results are obtained for the strong-coupling regime, $Ω_0\ggν$, where $Ω_0$ is the rms coupling amplitude (Rabi frequency) and $ν$ is the width of the reservoir spectrum. In this regime, the population difference and h…
We study theoretically the phonon-induced relaxation and decoherence processes in the hybrid qubit in silicon. Hybrid qubit behaves as a charge qubit when the detuning is close to zero and as spin qubit for large detuning values. It is realized starting from an electrostatically defined double quantum dot where three electrons are confined and manipulated through only electrical tuning. By employing a three-level effective model for the qubit and describing the environment bath as a series of harmonic oscillators in the thermal equilibrium states, we extract the relaxation and decoherence time…
We develop a "chain-boson model" master equation, within the Born-Markov approximation, for a few superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUIDs) coupled into a chain and exchanging their angular momenta with a low temperature phonon bath. Our master equation has four generators; we concentrate on the damping and diffusion and use them to study the relaxation and decoherence of a Heisenberg SQUID chain whose spectrum exhibits critical point energy-level crossings, entangled states, and pairs of resonant transitions. We note that at an energy-level crossing the relevant bath wavelengths a…
Some unexplored decoherence aspects within the Caldeira-Leggett master equation are analyzed and discussed. The decoherence process is controlled by the two environment parameters, the relaxation rate or friction and the temperature, leading to a gradual transition from the quantum to classical regime. Arrival time distributions, nonminimum-uncertainty-product or stretching Gaussian wave packets, identical particles and diffraction in time display interesting features during the decoherence process undergone by the time dependent interference patterns. We show that the presence of a constant f…
We study analytically and numerically the behavior of quantum entanglement in a quantum computer operating an efficient algorithm for quantum chaos. Our results show that in an ideal algorithm the entanglement decays exponentially with the diffusive relaxation rate induced by classical chaos. This decay goes down to a residual level which drops exponentially with the number of qubits n_q. Decoherence destroys the residual entanglement with a rate exponential in n_q.
An extension of the product operator formalism of NMR is introduced, which uses the Hadamard matrix product to describe many simple spin 1/2 relaxation processes. The utility of this formalism is illustrated by deriving NMR gradient-diffusion experiments to simulate several decoherence models of interest in quantum information processing, along with their Lindblad and Kraus representations. Gradient-diffusion experiments are also described for several more complex forms of decoherence, including the well-known collective isotropic model. Finally, it is shown that the Hadamard formalism gives a…
In this work we derive Born's rule from the pilot-wave theory of de Broglie and Bohm. Based on a toy model involving a particle coupled to a environement made of "qubits" (i.e., Bohmian pointers) we show that entanglement together with deterministic chaos lead to a fast relaxation from any statistitical distribution $ρ(x)$ (of finding a particle at point $x$) to the Born probability law $|Ψ(x)|^2$. Our model is discussed in the context of Boltzmann's kinetic theory and we demonstrate a kind of H theorem for the relaxation to the quantum equilibrium regime.
We study the constraints imposed on the population and phase relaxation rates by the physical requirement of completely positive evolution for open N-level systems. The Lindblad operators that govern the evolution of the system are expressed in terms of observable relaxation rates, explicit formulas for the decoherence rates due to population relaxation are derived, and it is shown that there are additional, non-trivial constraints on the pure dephasing rates for N>2. Explicit experimentally testable inequality constraints for the decoherence rates are derived for three and four-level systems,…
Strain-induced gradients of local electric fields in semiconductor quantum dots can couple to the quadrupole moments of nuclear spins. We develop a theory describing the influence of this quadrupolar coupling (QC) on the spin correlators of electron and hole "central" spins localized in such dots. We show that when the QC strength is comparable to or larger than the hyperfine coupling strength between nuclei and the central spin, the relaxation rate of the central spin is strongly enhanced and can be exponential. We demonstrate a good agreement with recent experiments on spin relaxation in hol…
By considering an exactly solvable model of a two interacting spin-1/2 qubits described by the Heisenberg anisotropic interaction in the presence of intrinsic decoherence, we study the dynamics of entanglement quantified by the concurrence and measurement-induced nonlocality (MIN) based on Hilbert-Schmidt norm and trace distance with different initial conditions. We highlight the relationship between the entanglement and MIN for the pure initial state. For an initial separable state, it is found that the robustness and the generation of the quantum correlations depend on the physical parameter…
A multi-slit interference experiment, with which-way detectors, in the presence of environment induced decoherence, is theoretically analyzed. The effect of environment is modeled via a coupling to a bath of harmonic oscillators. Through an exact analysis, an expression for $\mathcal{C}$, a recently introduced measure of coherence, of the particle at the detecting screen is obtained as a function of the parameters of the environment. It is argued that the effect of decoherence can be quantified using the measured coherence value which lies between zero and one. For the specific case of two sli…
Squeezed states and macroscopic superpositions of coherent states have been predicted to be generated dynamically in Bose Josephson junctions. We solve exactly the quantum dynamics of such a junction in the presence of a classical noise coupled to the population-imbalance number operator (phase noise), accounting for, for example, the experimentally relevant fluctuations of the magnetic field. We calculate the correction to the decay of the visibility induced by the noise in the non-Markovian regime. Furthermore, we predict that such a noise induces an anomalous rate of decoherence among the c…
We study the quantum dynamics of relaxation, decoherence and entropy of a qubit embedded in an anisotropic photonic crystal (PhC) through fractional calculus. These quantum measurements are investigated by analytically solving the fractional Langevin equation. The qubit with frequency lying inside the photonic band gap (PBG) exhibits the preserving behavior of energy, coherence and information amount through the steady values of excited-state probability, polarization oscillation and von Neumann entropy. This preservation does not exist in the Markovian system with qubit frequency lying outsid…
We present the design and characterization of a three-Josephson-junction superconducting loop circuit with three large shunt capacitors. Used as a qubit, the circuit shows long energy-relaxation times, of the order of 40 ${ \unicode[Times]{x3BC}}$s and a spin-echo dephasing time of 9.4 ${ \unicode[Times]{x3BC}}$s. The circuit has high anharmonicity, of 2$π$$\times$3.69 GHz. We extract the multilevel relaxation and dephasing rates of the circuit used as a qutrit and discuss the possible sources for the decoherence. The high anharmonicity allows for fast qubit control with nanosecond-range gate …
The coherent dynamics of relaxing spin qubits driven by a classical bichromatic field comprising a strong resonant component and a weaker component with a frequency close to the strong-field Rabi frequency is studied. The double dressing by the bichromatic field modifies dephasing and dissipation processes. We demonstrate that detuning of the weaker-field frequency from the strong-field Rabi frequency prolongs the decay of Rabi oscillations between some doubly dressed states. The sensitivity of Rabi oscillations to the modified detuning-dependent relaxation is illustrated for nitrogen-vacancy …
In this work, we studied the relaxation dynamics of coherences of different order present in a system of two coupled nuclear spins. We used a previously designed model for intrinsic noise present in such systems which considers the Lindblad master equation for Markovian relaxation. We experimentally created zero-, single- and double- quantum coherences in several two-spin systems and performed a complete state tomography and computed state fidelity. We experimentally measured the decay of zero- and double- quantum coherences in these systems. The experimental data fitted well to a model that c…
We suggest a new method of studying coherence in finite level systems coupled to the environment and use it for the Hamiltonian that has been used to describe the light-harvesting pigment-protein complex. The method works with the adiabatic states and transforms the Hamiltonian to a form in which the terms responsible for decoherence and population relaxation are separated out. Decoherence is then accounted for non-perturbatively, and population relaxation using a Markovian master equation. Analytical results can be obtained for the seven level system and the calculations are very simple for s…
We consider an electrostatic qubit, interacting with a fluctuating charge of single electron transistor (SET) in the framework of exactly solvable model. The SET plays a role of the fluctuating environment affecting the qubit's parameters in a controllable way. We derive the rate equations describing dynamics of the entire system for both weak and strong qubit-SET coupling. Solving these equation we obtain decoherence and relaxation rates of the qubit, as well as the spectral density of the fluctuating qubit's parameters. We found that in the weak coupling regime the decoherence and relaxation…
We study the nonlocal properties of two-qubit maximally-entangled and N-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger states under local decoherence. We show that the (non)resilience of entanglement under local depolarization or dephasing is not necessarily equivalent to the (non)resilience of Bell-inequality violations. Apart from entanglement and Bell-inequality violations, we consider also nonlocality as quantified by the nonlocal content of correlations, and provide several examples of anomalous behaviors, both in the bipartite and multipartite cases. In addition, we study the practical implications o…
We revisit the problem of the decoherence and relaxation of a central spin coupled to a bath of conduction electrons. We consider both metallic and semiconducting baths to study the effect of a gap in the bath density of states (DOS) on the time evolution of the density matrix of the central spin. We use two weak coupling approximation schemes to study the decoherence. At low temperatures, though the temperature dependence of the decoherence rate in the case of a metallic bath is the same irrespective of the details of the bath, the same is not true for the semiconducting bath. We also calcula…
We present a detailed report on the decoherence of quantum states of continuous variable systems under the action of a quantum optical master equation resulting from the interaction with general Gaussian uncorrelated environments. The rate of decoherence is quantified by relating it to the decay rates of various, complementary measures of the quantum nature of a state, such as the purity, some nonclassicality indicators in phase space and, for two-mode states, entanglement measures and total correlations between the modes. Different sets of physically relevant initial configurations are consid…
In idealized models of a quantum register and its environment, quantum information can be stored indefinitely by encoding it into a decoherence-free subspace (DFS). Nevertheless, perturbations to the idealized register-environment coupling will cause decoherence in any realistic setting. Expanding a measure for state preservation, the dynamical fidelity, in powers of the strength of the perturbations, we prove stability to linear order is a generic property of quantum state evolution. The effect of noise perturbation is quantified by a concise expression for the strength of the quadratic, lead…
Extracting macroscopic properties of a system from microscopic interactions has always been an interesting topic with the most diverse applications. Here, we use the quantum Boltzmann equation to investigate the density matrix evolution of a system of nucleons. Using the quantum field theory tools for constructing the density matrix operators and calculating the interactions is the main advantage of this equation. The right-hand side of this equation involves forward scattering and usual collision terms. As examples of application, we calculate the standard Bloch equations for the nucleon syst…
Liquid-state NMR quantum computer has demonstrated the possibility of quantum computation and supported its development. Using NMR quantum computer techniques, we observed phase decoherence under two kinds of artificial noise fields; one a noise with a long period, and the other with shorter random period. The first one models decoherence in a quantum channel while the second one models transverse relaxation. We demonstrated that the bang-bang control suppresses decoherence in both cases.
Exactly solvable models provide an opportunity to study different aspects of reduced quantum dynamics in detail. We consider the reduced dynamics of a single spin in finite XX and XY spin 1/2 chains. First we introduce a general expression describing the evolution of the reduced density matrix. This expression proves to be tractable when the combined closed system (i.e. open system plus environment) is integrable. Then we focus on comparing decoherence and thermalization timescales in the XX chain. We find that for a single spin these timescales are comparable, in contrast to what should be ex…
Paramagnetic defects in diamond and hexagonal boron nitride possess a unique combination of spin and optical properties that make them prototypical solid-state qubits. Despite the coherence of these spin qubits being critically limited by spin-phonon relaxation, a full understanding of this process is not yet available. Here we apply ab initio spin dynamics simulations to this problem and quantitatively reproduce the experimental temperature dependence of spin relaxation time and spin coherence time. We demonstrate that low-frequency two-phonon modulations of the zero-field splitting are respo…
Coherent single electron spin oscillation in a double quantum dot system driven by a magnetic electron spin resonance field is studied theoretically using a Bloch-type rate equation approach. The oscillation frequency and relaxation time obtained using typical model parameters are consistent with experiment findings. The dominant decoherence mechanism is identified to be a leakage current through a Coulomb blockade barrier at a quantum dot during the spin manipulation. Nuclear field fluctuations which induce a long relaxation time are found to contribute only negligibly to the decoherence desp…
We investigate a model system for the injection of fermionic particles from filled source sites into an empty chain. We study the ensuing dynamics for Hermitian as well as for non-Hermitian time evolution where the particles cannot return to the bath sites (quantum ratchet). A non-homogeneous hybridization between bath and chain sites permits transient currents in the chain. Non-interacting particles show decoherence in the thermodynamic limit: the average particle number and the average current density in the chain become stationary for long times, whereas the single-particle density matrix d…
Gaussian state decoherence aspects due to interacting magnetic-like and gravitational fields are quantified through the quantum fidelity and Shannon entropy in the scope of the phase-space representation of elementary quantum systems. For Gaussian Wigner functions describing harmonic oscillator states, an interacting external field destroys the quantum fidelity and introduces a quantum beating behavior. Likewise, it introduces harmonic profiles for free particle systems. Some aspects of quantum decoherence for the quantum harmonic oscillator and for the free particle limit are also quantified …
Computational advantages gained by quantum algorithms rely largely on the coherence of quantum devices and are generally compromised by decoherence. As an exception, we present a quantum algorithm for graph isomorphism testing whose performance is optimal when operating in the partially coherent regime, as opposed to the extremes of fully coherent or classical regimes. The algorithm builds on continuous-time quantum stochastic walks (QSWs) on graphs and the algorithmic performance is quantified by the distinguishing power (DIP) between non-isomorphic graphs. The QSW explores the entire graph a…
There are many formalisms to describe quantum decoherence. However, many of them give a non general and ad hoc definition of "pointer basis" or "moving preferred basis", and this fact is a problem for the decoherence program. In this paper we will consider quantum systems under a general theoretical framework for decoherence and we will present a tentative definition of the moving preferred basis. These ideas are implemented in a well-known open system model. The obtained decoherence and the relaxation times are defined and compared with those of the literature for the Lee- Friedrichs model.
We study the entanglement dynamics and relaxation properties of a system of two interacting qubits in the two cases (I) two independent bosonic baths and (II) one common bath, at temperature T. The entanglement dynamics is studied in terms of the concurrence C (t) between the two spins and of the von Neumann entropy S(t) with respect to the bath, as a function of time. We prove that the system does thermalize. In the case (II) of a single bath, the existence of a decoherence-free (DFS) subspace makes entanglement dynamics very rich. We show that when the system is initially in a state with a c…
Quantum Darwinism recognizes the role of the environment as a communication channel: Decoherence can selectively amplify information about the pointer states of a system of interest (preventing access to complementary information about their superpositions) and can make records of this information accessible to many observers. This redundancy explains the emergence of objective, classical reality in our quantum Universe. Here, we demonstrate that the amplification of information in realistic spin environments can be quantified by the quantum Chernoff information, which characterizes the distin…
The bidirectional steerability between different-size subsystems is discussed for a single parameter accelerated qubit-qutrit system. The decoherence due to the mixing and acceleration parameters is investigated, where for the total system and the qutrit, it increases as the mixing parameter increases, while it decreases for the qubit. The non-classical correlations are quantified by using the local quantum uncertainty, where it increases at large values of the acceleration parameter. The possibility that each subsystem steers each other is studied, where the behavior of the steering inequalit…
