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 physical limits and provide supporting experimental evidence. Exploitation of cross-correlation effects has recently led to the development of powerful methods in NMR spectroscopy to study very large biomolecules in solution. We demonstrate with experiments that the optimal pulse sequences provide significant gains over these state of the art methods, opening new avenues for spectroscopy of much larger proteins. Surprisingly, in spite of very large relaxation rates, optimal control can transfer coherence without any loss when cross-correlated relaxation rates are tuned to auto-correlated relaxation rates.
A thought experiment is discussed to clarify the concept of decoherence. Superposition of states consisting of ground state of a single hydrogen atom and its excited state after a huge amount of time is discussed to show that the decoherence of the state, more precisely the loss of coherence, is literally the loss of ability of interference. The loss of superposition of states is just apparent or even superfacial. Applications of this example in its relation to many-world interpretation of observation of a quantum state, decoherence in usual cases, and weak collapse of wavepackets are discusse…
Dissipation and decoherence, and the evolution from pure to mixed states in quantum physics are handled through master equations for the density matrix. By embedding elements of this matrix in a higher-dimensional Liouville-Bloch equation, the methods of unitary integration are adapted to solve for the density matrix as a function of time, including the non-unitary effects of dissipation and decoherence. The input requires only solutions of classical, initial value time-dependent equations. Results are illustrated for a damped driven two-level system.
We study the problem of driving an unknown initial mixed quantum state onto a known pure state without using unitary transformations. This can be achieved, in an efficient manner, with the help of sequential measurements on at least two unbiased bases. However here we found that, when the system is affected by a decoherence mechanism, only one observable is required in order to achieve the same goal. In this way the decoherence can assist the process. We show that, depending on the sort of decoherence, the process can converge faster or slower than the method implemented by means of two comple…
Decoherence effects associated to the damping of a tunneling two-level system are shown to dominate the tunneling probability at short times in strong coupling regimes in the context of a soluble model. A general decomposition of tunneling rates in dissipative and unitary parts is implemented. Master equation treatments fail to describe the model system correctly when more than a single relaxation time is involved.
We study the spontaneous decoherence of the coupled harmonic oscillators confined in a ring container, where the nearest-neighbor harmonic potentials are taken into consideration. Without any external symmetry breaking field or surrounding environment, the quantum superposition state prepared in the relative degrees of freedom gradually loses its quantum coherence spontaneously. This spontaneous decoherence is interpreted by the hidden couplings between the center-of-mass and relative degrees of freedoms, which actually originates from the symmetries of the ring geometry and corresponding nont…
We examine a class of bipartite mixed states which we call X states and report several analytic results related to the occurrence of so-called entanglement sudden death (ESD) under time evolution in the presence of common types of environmental noise. Avoidance of sudden death by application of purely local operations is shown to be feasible in some cases.
We study the behavior of Quantum Darwinism (Zurek, [8]) within the iterative, random unitary operations qubit-model of pure decoherence (Novotny et al, [6]). We conclude that Quantum Darwinism, which describes the quantum mechanical evolution of an open system S from the point of view of its environment E, is not a generic phenomenon, but depends on the specific form of input states and on the type of S-E-interactions. Furthermore, we show that within the random unitary model the concept of Quantum Darwinism enables one to explicitly construct and specify artificial input states of environment…
We study three methods of obtaining an approximation of unitary evolution of a quantum system under decoherence. We use three methods of optimizing the control pulses: genetic optimization, approximate evolution method and approximate gradient method. To model the noise in the system we use the Lindblad equaiton. We obtain results showing that genetic optimization may give a better approximation of a unitary evolution in the case of high noise.
We present a simple theoretical description of two recent experiments where damping of Rabi oscillations, which cannot be attributed to dissipative decoherence, has been observed. This is obtained considering the evolution time or the Hamiltonian as random variables and then averaging the usual unitary evolution on a properly defined, model-independent, probability distribution.
Relations connecting violation of any Bell inequalities and the complementarity between visibility and distinguishability in the interferometric experiments with different sources of decoherence are presented. A boundary of local-realistic explanation of the which-way complementarity is discussed in dependence on the choice of independent or collective tests of nonlocality.
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.
Enviroment - caused dissipation disrupts the hamiltonian evolution of all quantum systems not fully isolated from any bath. We propose and examine a feedback-control scheme to eliminate such dissipation, by tracking the free hamiltonian evolution. We determine a driving-field that maximizes the projection of the actual molecular system onto the freely propagated one. The evolution of a model two level system in a dephasing bath is followed, and the driving field that overcomes the decoherence is calculated. An implementation of the scheme in the laboratory using feedback control is suggested.
The evolution of the Schrödinger-cat states in a dissipative parametric amplifier is examined. The main tool in the analysis is the normally ordered characteristic function. Squeezing, photon-number distribution and reduced factorial moments are discussed for the single- and compound-mode cases. Also the single-mode Wigner function is demonstrated. In addition to the decoherence resulting from the interaction with the environment (damped case) there are two sources which can cause such decoherence in the system even if it is completely isolated: these are the decay of the pump and the relative…
We study, in the paradigm of open quantum systems, the dynamics of quantum coherence of a static polarizable two-level atom which is coupled with a thermal bath of fluctuating electromagnetic field in the absence and presence of boundaries. The purpose is to find the conditions under which the decoherence can be inhibited effectively. We find that without boundaries, quantum coherence of the two-level atom inevitably decreases due to the effect of thermal bath. However, the quantum decoherence, in the presence of a boundary, could be effectively inhibited when the atom is transversely polariza…
We study a dynamic process of disentanglement by considering the time evolution of bound entanglement for a quantum open system, two qutrits coupling to a common environment. Here, the initial quantum correlations of the two qutrits are characterized by the bound entanglement. In order to show the universality of the role of environment on bound entanglement, both bosonic and spin environments are considered. We found that the bound entanglement displays collapses and revivals, and it can be stable against small temperature and time change. The thermal fluctuation effects on bound entanglement…
In this work we investigate the dynamical Casimir effect in a nonideal cavity by deriving an effective Hamiltonian. We first compute a general expression for the average number of particle creation, applicable for any law of motion of the cavity boundary. We also compute a general expression for the linear entropy of an arbitrary state prepared in a selected mode, also applicable for any law of motion of the cavity boundary. As an application of our results we have analyzed both the average number of particle creation and linear entropy within a particular oscillatory motion of the cavity boun…
The dynamics associated with a measurement-based master equation for quantum Brownian motion are investigated. A scheme for obtaining time evolution from general initial conditions is derived. This is applied to analyze dissipation and decoherence in the evolution of both a Gaussian and a Schrödinger cat initial state. Dependence on the diffusive terms present in the master equation is discussed with reference to both the coordinate and momentum representations.
We investigate the time evolution of a superposition of macroscopically distinct quantum states in a system of two-level atoms interacting with a thermal environment of photon modes. We show that the atomic coherent states are robust against decoherence, therefore we call their superpositions atomic Schrödinger cat states. The initial fast regime of the time evolution is associated with the process of decoherence, and it is directed towards the statistical mixture of the constituent coherent states of the original state for most of the initial conditions. However, certain superpositions, calle…
If a quantum experiment includes random processes, then the results of repeated measurements can appear consistent with irreversible decoherence even if the system's evolution prior to measurement was reversible and unitary. Two thought experiments are constructed as examples.
We observe that multi-body interactions, unlike two-body interactions, can implement any unitary operation on an encoded system in such a way that the evolution is uninterrupted by noise that the encoding is designed to protect against. Such "error-transparent" evolution is distinct from that usually considered in quantum computing, as the latter is merely correctable. We prove that the minimum body-ness required to protect i) a qubit from a single type of Pauli error, ii) a target qubit from a controller with such errors, iii) a single qubit from all errors, is 3-body, 4-body, and 5-body resp…
We study the time evolution of a qubit linearly coupled with a quantum environment under a sequence of short pi pulses. Our attention is focused on the case where qubit-environment interactions induce the decoherence with population decay. We assume that the environment consists of a set of bosonic excitations. The time evolution of the reduced density matrix for the qubit is calculated in the presence of periodic short pi pulses. We confirm that the decoherence is suppressed if the pulse interval is shorter than the correlation time for qubit-environment interactions.
The time evolution of a spin-1/2 particle under the influence of a locally applied external magnetic field, and interacting with anisotropic spin environment in thermal equilibrium at temperature $T$ is studied. The exact analytical form of the reduced density matrix of the central spin is calculated explicitly for finite number of bath spins. The case of an infinite number of environmental spins is investigated using the convergence of the rescaled bath operators to normal Gaussian random variables. In this limit, we derive the analytical form of the components of the Bloch vector for antifer…
In this paper we detail some results advanced in a recent letter [Prado et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 102 073008 (2009)] showing how to engineer reservoirs for two-level systems at absolute zero by means of a time-dependent master equation leading to a nonstationary superposition equilibrium state. We also present a general recipe showing how to build nonadiabatic coherent evolutions of a fermionic system interacting with a bosonic mode and investigate the influence of thermal reservoirs at finite temperature on the fidelity of the protected superposition state. Our analytical results are supported…
The development of quantum walks in the context of quantum computation, as generalisations of random walk techniques, led rapidly to several new quantum algorithms. These all follow unitary quantum evolution, apart from the final measurement. Since logical qubits in a quantum computer must be protected from decoherence by error correction, there is no need to consider decoherence at the level of algorithms. Nonetheless, enlarging the range of quantum dynamics to include non-unitary evolution provides a wider range of possibilities for tuning the properties of quantum walks. For example, small …
We propose a nonextensive generalization (q parametrized) of the von Neumann equation for the density operator. Our model naturally leads to the phenomenon of decoherence, and unitary evolution is recovered in the limit of q -> 1. The resulting evolution yields a nonexponential decay for quantum coherences, fact that might be attributed to nonextensivity. We discuss, as an example, the loss of coherence observed in trapped ions.
We analyze the evolution of a quantum Brownian particle starting from an initial state that contains correlations between this system and its environment. Using a path integral approach, we obtain a master equation for the reduced density matrix of the system finding relatively simple expressions for its time dependent coefficients. We examine the evolution of delocalized initial states (Schrödinger's cats) investigating the effectiveness of the decoherence process. Analytic results are obtained for an ohmic environment (Drude's model) at zero temperature.
Reflection of a microscopic particle from a mesoscopic/macroscopic `mirror' generates two-body correlated interference from the incident and reflected particle substates and their associated mirror substates. The microscopic momentum exchanged generates two mirror substates which interfere to produce fringes which do not vanish as the mirror mass increases. The small displacement between these mirror states can yield negligible environmental decoherence times. Mirror coherence lengths impose constraints on the extent of this interference, which are mitigated using interference of the two-body …
In the present study, time evolution of quantum Cramer-Rao bound of entangled N00N state, as phase sensitivity, is determined by the aid of quantum estimation theory in the presence decoherence channels. Also, the dynamic quantum process as decoherence approach is characterized by quantum fisher information flow and entanglement amount in order to distinguish between Markovian and Non-Markovian process. The comparison between quantum fisher information and quantum fisher information flow assists to comprehend the phase sensitivity evolution corresponding to Non-Markovian and Markovian process.…
We analyze decoherence-free (DF) quantum information in the presence of an arbitrary non-nearest-neighbor bath-induced system Hamiltonian using a Markovian master equation. We show that the most appropriate encoding for N qubits is probably contained within the ~(2/9) N excitation subspace. We give a timescale over which one would expect to apply other methods to correct for the system Hamiltonian. In order to remain applicable to experiment, we then focus on small systems, and present examples of DF quantum information for three and four qubits. We give an encoding for four qubits that, while…
We present a scheme to implement a universal set of quantum gates based on achievable interactions, and the gates can be protected against decoherences through dynamical-decoupling approach without encoding. By properly designing system evolutions, the desired system interactions commute with the elements forming dynamical decoupling pulses. Thus, the effect of decoherences can be eliminated by repeatedly applying the pulses, without noticeably affecting the system evolutions governed by the desired system interactions given small enough time interval between pulses. Moreover, due to the commu…
The entanglement of two qubits, each defined as an effective two-level, spin 1/2 system, is investigated for the case that the qubits interact via a Heisenberg XY interaction and are subject to decoherence due to population relaxation and thermal effects. For zero temperature, the time dependent concurrence is studied analytically and numerically for some typical initial states, including a separable (unentangled) initial state. An analytical formula for non-zero steady state concurrence is found for any initial state, and optimal parameter values for maximizing steady state concurrence are gi…
Entanglement between a quantum system and its environment leads to loss of coherence in the former. In general, the temporal fate of coherences is complicated. Here, we establish the connection between decoherence of a central system and fidelity decay in the environment for a variety of situations, including both, energy conserving and dissipative couplings. We show how properties of unitary time evolution of the environment can be inferred from the non-unitary evolution of coherences in the central system. This opens up promising ways for measuring Loschmidt echoes in a variety of situations…
We propose a novel approach to intrinsic decoherence without adding new assumptions to standard Quantum Mechanics. We generalize the Liouville equation just by requiring the dynamical semigroup property of time evolution and dropping the unitarity requirement. With no approximations and specific statistical assumptions we find a generalized Liouville equation which depends on two characteristic time t1 and t2 and reduces to the usual equation in the limit t1 = t2 --> 0. However, for t1 and t2 arbitrarily small but finite, our equation can be written as a finite difference equation which predic…
The evolution of two qubits coupled by a general nonlocal interaction is studied in two distinct regimes. In the first regime the purity of the individual qubits is interchanged through the entanglement shared by the two. We illustrate how this can be a mechanism for decoherence. In the second regime, the interaction entangles two initially pure qubits. The dynamical maps for the reduced unitary evolution of both initially simply separable and not-simply-separable states are found. We outline a protocol for optimizing the entanglement generation subject to constraints.
We propose a novel approach to intrinsic decoherence without adding new assumptions to standard quantum mechanics. We generalize the Liouville equation just by requiring the dynamical semigroup property of time evolution and dropping the unitarity requirement. With no approximations and statistical assumptions we find a generalized Liouville equation which depends on two characteristic time t1 and t2 and reduces to the usual equation in the limit t1 = t2 -> 0. However, for t1 and t2 arbitrarily small but finite, our equation can be written as a finite difference equation which predicts state r…
Despite the great success of quantum mechanics, questions regarding its application still exist and the boundary between quantum and classical mechanics remains unclear. Based on the philosophical assumptions of macrorealism and noninvasive measurability, Leggett and Garg devised a series of inequalities (LG inequalities) involving a single system with a set of measurements at different times. Introduced as the Bell inequalities in time, the violation of LG inequalities excludes the hidden-variable description based on the above two assumptions. We experimentally investigated the single photon…
Consider a discrete-time quantum walk on the $N$-cycle subject to decoherence both on the coin and the position degrees of freedom. By examining the evolution of the density matrix of the system, we derive some new conclusions about the asymptotic behavior of the system. When $N$ is odd, the density matrix of the system tends, in the long run, to the maximally mixed state, independent of the initial state. When $N$ is even, although the behavior of the system is not necessarily asymptotically stationary, in this case too an explicit formulation is obtained of the asymptotic dynamics of the sys…
We investigate decoherence in the limit where the interaction with the environment is weak and the evolution is dominated by the self Hamiltonian of the system. We show that in this case quantized eigenstates of energy emerge as pointer states selected through the predictability sieve.
Shortcuts to adiabaticity provide a general approach to mimic adiabatic quantum processes via arbitrarily fast evolutions in Hilbert space. For these counter-diabatic evolutions, higher speed comes at higher energy cost. Here, the counter-diabatic theory is employed as a minimal energy demanding scheme for speeding up adiabatic tasks. As a by-product, we show that this approach can be used to obtain infinite classes of transitionless models, including time-independent Hamiltonians under certain conditions over the eigenstates of the original Hamiltonian. We apply these results to investigate s…
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.
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 consider a continuous measurement of a two-level system (double-dot) by weakly coupled detector (tunnel point contact nearby). While usual treatment leads to the gradual system decoherence due to the measurement, we show that the knowledge of the measurement result can restore the pure wavefunction at any time (this can be experimentally verified). The formalism allows to write a simple Langevin equation for the random evolution of the system density matrix which is reflected and caused by the stochastic detector output. Gradual wavefunction ``collapse'' and quantum Zeno effect are naturall…
We investigate the capabilities of a quantum computer based on cold trapped ions in presence of non-dissipative decoherence. The latter is accounted by using the evolution time as a random variable and then averaging on a properly defined probability distribution. Severe bounds on computational performances are found.
Dissipation and decoherence, and the evolution from pure to mixed states in quantum physics are handled through master equations for the density matrix. Master equations such as the Lindblad equation preserve the trace of this matrix. Viewing them as first-order time-dependent operator equations for the elements of the density matrix, a unitary integration procedure can be adapted to solve for these matrix elements. A simple model for decoherence preserves the hermiticity of the density matrix. A single, classical Riccati equation is the only one requiring numerical handling to obtain a full s…
By investigating the evolution of a moving spin-1/2 Dirac electron coupled with a background magnetic noise, we demonstrate that the effects of special relativity will significantly modify the decoherence properties of the spin state. The dephasing could be much suppressed, and for a sufficiently long time the decoherence even seems to halt. This interesting phenomenon stems from the dressed environment induced by special relativity.
We consider N identical oscillators coupled to a single environment and show that the conditions for the existence of decoherence free subspaces are degeneracy of the oscillator frequencies and separability of the coupling with the environment. A formal exact equation for the evolution in the case of two oscillators is found and the decoherence free subspace is explicitly determined. A full analytical solution for any initial condition and general parameters (frequencies and dissipation constants) is given in the markovian approximation and zero temperature. We find that slight relaxation of d…
The estimation of the decoherence process of an open quantum system is of both theoretical significance and experimental appealing. Practically, the decoherence can be easily estimated if the coherence evolution satisfies some simple relations. Based on the coherence quantification method, we prove a simple factorization relation for the $l_1$ norm measure of coherence, and analyze under which condition this relation holds. We also obtain a more general relation which applies to arbitrary $N$-qubit state, and determine a condition for the transformation matrix of the quantum channel which can …
We investigate an open $XYZ$ spin $1/2$ chain driven out of equilibrium by boundary reservoirs targeting different spin orientations, aligned along the principal axes of anisotropy. We show that by tuning local magnetic fields, applied to spins at sites near the boundaries, one can change any nonequilibrium steady state to a fully uncorrelated Gibbsian state at infinite temperature. This phenomenon occurs for strong boundary coupling and on a critical manifold in the space of the fields amplitudes. The structure of this manifold depends on the anisotropy degree of the model and on the parity o…
It is often said that the transition from quantum to classical worlds is caused by decoherence originated from an interaction between a system of interest and its surrounding environment. Here we establish a computational quantum-classical boundary from the viewpoint of classical simulatability of a quantum system under decoherence. Specifically, we consider commuting quantum circuits being subject to decoherence. Or equivalently, we can regard them as measurement-based quantum computation on decohered weighted graph states. To show intractability of classical simulation above the boundary, we…
Using a numerical simulation of the evolution of a qubit interacting with the environment we show that quantum error detection and correction can work effectively even when the recovery procedure introduces errors.
A quantum system with discrete and continuos evolution spectrum is studied. A final pointer basis is found, that can be defined in a presised mathematical way. This result is use to explain the quantum measurement in the system.
The effect of introducing measuring devices in a ``quantum pinball'' system is shown to lead to a chaotic evolution for the particle position as defined in Bohm's approach to Quantum Mechanics.
We consider a continuous measurement of a two-level system (double-dot) by weakly coupled detector (tunnel point contact nearby). While usual treatment leads to the gradual system decoherence due to the measurement, we show that the knowledge of the measurement result can restore the pure wavefunction at any time (this can be experimentally verified). The formalism allows to write a simple Langevin equation for the random evolution of the system density matrix which is reflected and caused by the stochastic detector output. Gradual wavefunction ``collapse'' and quantum Zeno effect are naturall…
We investigate the time evolution of entanglement for bipartite systems of arbitrary dimensions under the influence of decoherence. For qubits, we determine the precise entanglement decay rates under different system-environment couplings, including finite temperature effects. For qudits, we show how to obtain upper bounds for the decay rates and also present exact solutions for various classes of states.
