We report the realization, using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques, of the first quantum computer that reliably executes an algorithm in the presence of strong decoherence. The computer is based on a quantum error avoidance code that protects against a class of multiple-qubit errors. The code stores two decoherence-free logical qubits in four noisy physical qubits. The computer successfully executes Grover's search algorithm in the presence of arbitrarily strong engineered decoherence. A control computer with no decoherence protection consistently fails under the same conditions.
A fundamental requirement of quantum information processing is the protection from the adverse effects of decoherence and noise. Decoherence-free subspaces and geometric processing are important steps of quantum information protection. Here, we provide a new experimentally feasible scheme to combine decoherence-free subspaces with nonadiabatic geometric manipulations to attain a universal quantum computation. The proposed scheme is different from previous proposals and is based on the typical XY interaction coupling, which can be set up in various nano-engineered systems and therefore open up …
Any residual coupling of a quantum computer to the environment results in computational errors. Encoding quantum information in a so-called decoherence-free subspace provides means to avoid these errors. Despite tremendous progress in employing this technique to extend memory storage times by orders of magnitude, computation within such subspaces has been scarce. Here, we demonstrate the realization of a universal set of quantum gates acting on decoherence-free ion qubits. We combine these gates to realize the first controlled-NOT gate within a decoherence-free, scalable quantum computer.
We report the realization of an entangled quantum superposition of M=12 photons by a high gain, quantum-injected optical parametric amplification. The system is found so highly resilient against decoherence to exhibit directly accessible mesoscopic interference effects at normal temperature. By modern tomographic methods the non-separability and the quantum superposition are demonstrated for the overall mesoscopic output state of the dynamic ''closed system''. The device realizes the condition conceived by Erwin Schroedinger with his 1935 paradigmatic ''Cat'' apologue, a fundamental landmark i…
Quantum decoherence has been studied using nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR). By choosing one qubit to simulate environment, we examine the decoherence behavior of two quantum systems: a one qubit system and a two qubit system. The experimental results show agreements with the theoretical predictions. Our experiment schemes can be generalized to the case that the environment is composed of multiple qubits.
Nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces has attracted increasing attention recently, as it allows for high-speed implementation and combines both the robustness of holonomic gates and the coherence stabilization of decoherence-free subspaces. Since the first protocol of nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces, a number of schemes for its physical implementation have been put forward. However, all previous schemes require two noncommuting gates to realize an arbitrary one-qubit gate, which doubles the exposure time of gates to er…
This letter presents a two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance(NMR) approach for constructing a two-logical-qubit decoherence-free subspace (DFS) based on the fact that the three protons in a CH3 spin system can not be resolved in one-dimension NMR spectroscopy, but to a certain extent, can be distinguished by two-dimensional multiple-quantum NMR. We used four noisy physical nuclear spins, including three protons and one carbon in the CH3 spin system, to generate two decoherence-free logical quantum bits. It made full use of the unaddressed spins which could not be used in one-dimensional s…
Overlapping resonances are shown to provide new insights into the extent of decoherence experienced by a system superposition state in the regime of strong system- environment coupling. As an example of this general approach, a generic system comprising spin-half particles interacting with a thermalized oscillator environment is considered. We find that (a) amongst the collection of parametrized Hamiltonians, the larger the overlapping resonances contribution, the greater the maximum possible purity, and (b) for a fixed Hamiltonian, the larger the overlapping resonances contribution, the large…
High-fidelity quantum gates are essential for large-scale quantum computation, which can naturally be realized in a noise-resilient way. Geometric manipulation and decoherence-free subspace encoding are promising ways toward robust quantum computation. Here, by combining the advantages of both strategies, we propose and experimentally realize universal holonomic quantum gates in both a singleloop scheme and a composite scheme, based on nonadiabatic and non-Abelian geometric phases, in a decoherence-free subspace with nuclear magnetic resonance. Our experiment uses only two-body resonant spin-s…
By choosing H nucleus in Carbon-13 labelled trichloroethylene as one qubit environment, and two C nuclei as a two-qubit system, we have simulated quantum decoherence when the system lies in an entangled state using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Decoupling technique is used to trace over the environment degrees of freedom. Experimental results show agreements with the theoretical predictions. Our experiment scheme can be generalized to the case that environment is composed of multiple qubits.
We consider a simple version of a cyclic adiabatic inversion (CAI) technique in magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM). We study the problem: What component of the spin is measured in the CAI MRFM? We show that the non-destructive detection of the cantilever vibrations provides a measurement of the spin component along the effective magnetic field. This result is based on numerical simulations of the Hamiltonian dynamics (the Schrodinger equation) and the numerical solution of the master equation.
We study the quantum kicked rotor in resonance subjected to an unitary noise defined through Kraus operators, we show that this type of decoherence does not, in general, lead to the classical diffusive behavior. We find exact analytical expressions for the density matrix and the variance in the primary resonances. The variance does not loose its ballistic behavior, however the coherence decays as a power law. The secondary resonances are treated numerically, obtaining a power-law decay for the variance and an exponential law decay for the coherence.
In the lectures we will be concerned with some aspects of physical implementations of quantum gate operations which are necessary for quantum information processing. We will discuss two possible realizations. One of them is based on qubits being encoded in atomic degrees of freedom where the atoms are manipulated in optical lattices above atom chips. The other realization is based on photonic qubits and measurement-induced nonlinearities in linear optics. Both implementations have in common that their main decoherence mechanism is absorption in dielectric materials. The quantum theory of light…
The distribution and processing of quantum entanglement form the basis of quantum communication and quantum computing. The realization of the two is difficult because quantum information inherently has a high susceptibility to decoherence, i.e. to uncontrollable information loss to the environment. For entanglement distribution, a proposed solution to this problem is capable of fully eliminating decoherence; namely iterative entanglement distillation. This approach builds on a large number of distillation steps each of which extracts a number of weakly decohered entangled states from a larger …
It is shown that, through a super-radiant Rayleigh scattering, a strong far off-resonant pump laser applied to a Bose-Einstein condensates(BEC) can induce a non-demolition coupling of the many-mode quantized vacuum field to the BEC. This effective interaction will force the total system of the BEC plus the light field to evolve from a factorized initial state to an ideal entangled state and thus result in the quantum decoherence in the BEC. Since the effective coupling coefficients are mainly determined by the Rabi frequency of the pump laser, the quantum decoherence process can be controlled …
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.
Photons in cavities have been already used for the realization of simple quantum gates [Q.A. Turchette, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75,4710 (1995)]. We present a method for combatting decoherence in this case.
Decoherence is the main obstacle to the realization of quantum computers. Until recently it was thought that quantum error correcting codes are the only complete solution to the decoherence problem. Here we present an alternative that is based on a combination of a decoherence-free subspace encoding and the application of strong and fast pulses: ``encoded recoupling and decoupling'' (ERD). This alternative has the advantage of lower encoding overhead (as few as two physical qubits per logical qubit suffice), and direct application to a number of promising proposals for the experimental realiza…
Nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation uses non-Abelian geometric phases to implement a universal set of quantum gates that are robust against control imperfections and decoherence. Until now, a number of three-level-based schemes of nonadiabatic holonomic computation have been put forward, and several of them have been experimentally realized. However, all these works are based on the same class of nonadiabatic paths, which originates from the first nonadiabatic holonomic proposal. Here, we propose a universal set of nonadiabatic holonomic gates based on an extended class of nonadiabatic …
We investigate the effect of decoherence on Fano resonances in wave transmission through resonant scattering structures. We show that the Fano asymmetry parameter q follows, as a function of the strength of decoherence, trajectories in the complex plane that reveal detailed information on the underlying decoherence process. Dissipation and unitary dephasing give rise to manifestly different trajectories. Our predictions are successfully tested against microwave experiments using metal cavities with different absorption coefficients and against previously published data on transport through qua…
The explanation presented in [Taichenachev et al, Phys. Rev. A {\bf 61}, 011802 (2000)] according to which the electromagnetically induced absorption (EIA) resonances observed in degenerate two level systems are due to coherence transfer from the excited to the ground state is experimentally tested in a Hanle type experiment observing the parametric resonance on the $% D1$ line of $^{87}$Rb. While EIA occurs in the $F=1\to F^{\prime}=2 $ transition in a cell containing only $Rb$ vapor, collisions with a buffer gas ($30 torr$ of $Ne$) cause the sign reversal of this resonance as a consequence o…
We propose a method for controlling the decoherence of a driven qubit that is strongly coupled to a reservoir, when the qubit resonance frequency is close to a continuum edge of the reservoir spectum. This strong-coupling regime is outside the scope of existing methods of decoherence control. We demonstate that an appropriate sequence of nearly abrupt changes of the resonance frequency can protect the qubit state from decay and decoherence more effectively than the intuitively obvious alternative, which is to fix the resonance well within a forbidden bandgap of the reservoir spectrum, as far a…
We show that all Macroscopic Quantum Superpositions (MQS) based on phase-covariant quantum cloning are characterized by an anomalous high resilence to the de-coherence processes. The analysis supports the results of recent MQS experiments and leads to conceive a useful conjecture regarding the realization of complex decoherence - free structures for quantum information, such as the quantum computer.
Quantum decoherence plays a pivotal role in the dynamical description of the quantum-to-classical transition and is the main impediment to the realization of devices for quantum information processing. This paper gives an overview of the theory and experimental observation of the decoherence mechanism. We introduce the essential concepts and the mathematical formalism of decoherence, focusing on the picture of the decoherence process as a continuous monitoring of a quantum system by its environment. We review several classes of decoherence models and discuss the description of the decoherence …
We numerically investigate momentum diffusion rates for the pulse kicked rotor across the quantum to classical transition as the dynamics are made more macroscopic by increasing the total system action. For initial and late time rates we observe an enhanced diffusion peak which shifts and scales with changing kick strength, and we also observe distinctive peaks around quantum resonances. Our investigations take place in the context of a system of ultracold atoms which is coupled to its environment via spontaneous emission decoherence, and the effects should be realisable in ongoing experiments…
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…
Decoherence is the major stumbling block in the realization of a large-scale quantum computer. Ingenious methods have been devised to overcome decoherence, but their success has been proven only for over-simplified models of system-environment interaction. Whether such methods will be reliable in the face of more realistic models is a fundamental open question. In this partly pedagogical article, we study two toy models of quantum information processing, using the language of \emph{quantum walks}. Decoherence is incorporated in 3 ways - by coupling to a noisy `projective measurement' system, a…
We present expressions demonstrating that collisional decoherence of ultracold atoms or molecules in a coherent superposition of non-degenerate quantum states is suppressed when both the real and imaginary parts of the scattering lengths for the states in the coherent superposition are equal. We show that the rate of collisional decoherence can be enhanced or suppressed by varying an external magnetic field near a Feshbach resonance. For some resonances, the suppression is very dramatic. We propose a method for measuring the scattering length of ultracold particles in excited quantum states ex…
Quantum random walks are the quantum counterpart of classical random walks, and were recently studied in the context of quantum computation. A quantum random walker is subject to self interference, leading to a remarkably different behavior than that of classical random walks such as ballistic propagation or localization due to disorder. Physical implementations of quantum walks have only been made in very small scale systems severely limited by decoherence. Here we show that the propagation of photons in waveguide lattices, which have been studied extensively in recent years, are essentially …
We study two different decoherence modes for entangled qubits by considering a Liouville - von Neumann master equation. Mode A is determined by projection operators onto the eigenstates of the Hamiltonian and mode B by projectors onto rotated states. We present solutions for general and for Bell diagonal states and calculate for the later the mixedness and the amount of entanglement given by the concurrence. We propose a realization of the decoherence modes within neutron interferometry by applying fluctuating magnetic fields. An experimental test of the Kraus operator decomposition describing…
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 have studied a system composed by two endohedral fullerene molecules. We have found that this system can be used as good candidate for the realization of Quantum Gates Each of these molecules encapsules an atom carrying a spin,therefore they interact through the spin dipole interaction. We show that a phase gate can be realized if we apply on each encased spin static and time dependent magnetic field. We have evaluated the operational time of a $π$-phase gate, which is of the order of ns. We made a comparison between the theoretical estimation of the gate time and the experimental decoheren…
Recently, de Visser and Blaauboer [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 96}, 246801 (2006)] proposed the most efficient deterministic teleportation protocol $\cal T$ for electron spins in a semiconductor nanostructure consisting of a single and a double quantum dot. However, it is as yet unknown if $\cal T$ can be completed before decoherence sets in. In this paper we analyze the detrimental effect of nuclear spin baths, the main source of decoherence, on $\cal T$. We show that nonclassical teleportation fidelity can be achieved with $\cal T$ provided certain conditions are met. Our study indicates that real…
We present a rigorous analysis of the phenomenon of decoherence for general $N-$level systems coupled to reservoirs. The latter are described by free massless bosonic fields. We apply our general results to the specific cases of the qubit and the quantum register. We compare our results with the explicitly solvable case of systems whose interaction with the environment does not allow for energy exchange (non-demolition, or energy conserving interactions). We suggest a new approach which applies to a wide variety of systems which are not explicitly solvable.
According to the theoretical results, the quantum searching algorithm can be generalized by replacing the Walsh-Hadamard(W-H) transform by almost any quantum mechanical operation. We have implemented the generalized algorithm using nuclear magnetic resonance techniques with a solution of chloroform molecules. Experimental results show the good agreement between theory and experiment.
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…
It is well-known that decoherence is a crucial barrier in realizing various quantum information processing tasks; on the other hand, it plays a pivotal role in explaining how a quantum system's fragile state leads to the robust classical state. Zurek [Nat. Phys. 5, 181-188 (2009)] has developed the theory which successfully describes the emergence of classical objectivity of quantum system via decoherence, introduced by the environment. Here, we consider two systems for a model universe, in which the first system shows a random quantum state, and the other represents the environment. We take 2…
We show that multidimensional Zeno effect combined with non-holonomic control allows to efficiently protect quantum systems from decoherence by a method similar to classical coding. Contrary to the conventional approach, our method is applicable to arbitrary error-inducing Hamiltonians and general quantum systems. We also propose algorithms of finding encoding that approaches the Hamming upper bound along with methods of practical realizations of the encodings. Two new codes protecting 2 information qubits out of 7 and 4 information qubits out of 9 against a single error with arbitrarily small…
The three- spin chain with Heisenberg XY- interaction is simulated in a three- qubit nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) quantum computer. The evolution caused by the XY- interaction is decomposed into a series of single- spin rotations and the $J$- coupling evolutions between the neighboring spins. The perfect state transfer (PST) algorithm proposed by M. Christandl et al [Phys. Rev. Lett, 92, 187902(2004)] is realized in the XY- chain.
Due to omnipresent environmental interferences, quantum coherences inevitably undergo irreversible transformations over certain time-scales, thus leading to the loss of encoded information. This process, known as decoherence, has been a major obstacle in realizing efficient quantum information processors. Understanding the mechanism of decoherence is crucial in developing tools to inhibit it. Here we utilize a method proposed by Cory and co-workers [Phys. Rev. A 67, 062316 (2003)] to engineer artificial decoherence in the system qubits by randomly perturbing their surrounding ancilla qubits. U…
Translation-covariant Markovian master equations used in the description of decoherence and dissipation are considered in the general framework of Holevo's results on the characterization of generators of covariant quantum dynamical semigroups. A general connection between the characteristic function of classical Lévy processes and loss of coherence of the statistical operator describing the center of mass degrees of freedom of a quantum system interacting through momentum transfer events with an environment is established. The relationship with both microphysical models and experimental reali…
Qubit realizations based on Majorana bound states have been considered promising candidates for quantum information processing which is inherently inert to decoherence. We put the underlying general arguments leading to this conjecture to the test from an open quantum system perspective. It turns out that, from a fundamental point of view, the Majorana qubit is as susceptible to decoherence as any local paradigm of a qubit.
We have observed the phenomenon of stochastic resonance on the Brillouin propagation modes of a dissipative optical lattice. Such a mode has been excited by applying a moving potential modulation with phase velocity equal to the velocity of the mode. Its amplitude has been characterized by the center-of-mass (CM) velocity of the atomic cloud. At Brillouin resonance, we studied the CM-velocity as a function of the optical pumping rate at a given depth of the potential wells. We have observed a resonant dependence of the CM velocity on the optical pumping rate, corresponding to the noise strengt…
We study Si:P donor electron spin decoherence due to anisotropic hyperfine (AHF) interaction with the surrounding nuclear spin bath. In particular, we clarify the electron spin echo envelope modulation (ESEEM) in the Si:P system and the resonancelike contributions from nuclear spins in various shells away from the P atoms. We suggest an approach to minimize AHF-induced decoherence by avoiding the resonances and orienting an applied magnetic field along directions that can periodically eliminate contributions from the dominant nearest neighbor atoms. Our remarkable agreement with experiment dem…
During recent years, dynamical decoupling (DD) has gained relevance as a tool for manipulating quantum systems and extracting information from them. This is particularly relevant for spins involved in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), where DD sequences can be used to prolong quantum coherences, or for selectively couple/decouple the effects imposed by random environmental fluctuations. In this Letter, we show that one can exploit these concepts in order to selectively recouple diffusion processes in restricted spaces. The ensuing method provides a novel tool to measure restriction lengths in …
We put forward a new, versatile and highly-scalable experimental setup for the realization of discrete two-dimensional quantum random walks with a single-qubit coin and tunable degree of decoherence. The proposed scheme makes use of a small number of simple optical components arranged in a multi-path Mach-Zehnder-like configuration, where a weak coherent state with average photon number of 1 is injected. Environmental effects (decoherence) are generated by a spatial light modulator, which introduces pure dephasing in the transverse spatial plane, perpendicular to the direction of propagation o…
we experimentally implement a fault-tolerant quantum key distribution protocol with two photons in a decoherence-free subspace (DFS). It is demonstrated that our protocol can yield good key rate even with large bit-flip error rate caused by collective rotation, while the usual realization of BB84 protocol cannot produce any secure final key given the same channel. Since the experiment is performed in polarization space and does not need the calibration of reference frame, important applications in free-space quantum communication are expected. Moreover, our method can also be used to robustly …
Universal quantum cloning machines (UQCMs), sometimes called quantum cloners, generate many outputs with identical density matrices, with as close a resemblance to the input state as is allowed by the basic principles of quantum mechanics. Any experimental realization of a quantum cloner has to cope with the effects of decoherence which terminate the coherent evolution demanded by a UQCM. We examine how many clones can be generated within a decoherence time. We compare the time that a quantum cloner implemented with trapped ions requires to produce $M$ copies from $N$ identical pure state inpu…
The main obstacles to the realization of high-fidelity quantum gates are the control errors arising from inaccurate manipulation of a quantum system and the decoherence caused by the interaction between the quantum system and its environment. Nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation allows for high-speed implementation of whole-geometric quantum gates, making quantum computation robust against control errors. Dynamical decoupling provides an effective method to protect quantum gates against environment-induced decoherence, regardless of collective decoherence or independent decoherence. In t…
We report the successful generation of an entangled multiparticle quantum superposition of pure photon states. They result from a multiple (universal} cloning of a single photon qubit by a high gain, quantum-injected parametric amplifier. The information preserving property of the process suggests for these states the name of ''multi-particle qubits''. They are ideal objects for investigating the emergence of the classical world in quantum systems with increasing complexity, the decoherence processes and may allow the practical implementation of the universal 2-qubit logic gates.
We report on room-temperature coherent manipulation of the spin of a single nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond and a study of its coherence as a function of magnetic field. We use magnetic resonance to induce Rabi nutations, and apply a Hahn spin echo to remove the effect of low-frequency dephasing. A sharp rise in the decoherence rate is observed at magnetic fields where the nitrogen-vacancy center spin couples resonantly to substitutional nitrogen spins via the magnetic dipolar coupling. Finally, we find evidence that away from these energy resonances spin flips of nitrogen electrons are the…
The decoherence of mixed electron-nuclear spin qubits is a topic of great current importance, but understanding is still lacking: while important decoherence mechanisms for spin qubits arise from quantum spin bath environments with slow decay of correlations, the only analytical framework for explaining observed sharp variations of decoherence times with magnetic field is based on the suppression of classical noise. Here we obtain a general expression for decoherence times of the central spin system which exposes significant differences between quantum-bath decoherence and decoherence by class…
The adiabatic evolution is the dynamics of an instantaneous eigenstate of a slowly varing Hamiltonian. Recently, an interesting phenomenon shows up that white noises can enhance and even induce adiabaticity, which is in contrast to previous perception that environmental noises always modify and even ruin a designed adiabatic passage. We experimentally realized a noise-induced adiabaticity in a nuclear magnetic resonance system. Adiabatic Hadamard gate and entangled state are demonstrated. The effect of noise on adiabaticity is experimentally exhibited and compared with the noise-free process. …
We propose a method based on optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) to measure the decoherence time $T_{2}$ of a single electron spin in a semiconductor quantum dot. The electron spin resonance (ESR) of a single excess electron on a quantum dot is probed by circularly polarized laser excitation. Due to Pauli blocking, optical excitation is only possible for one of the electron-spin states. The photoluminescence is modulated due to the ESR which enables the measurement of electron spin decoherence. We study different possible schemes for such an ODMR setup.
The state of a microscopic system encodes its complete quantum description, from which the probabilities of all measurement outcomes are inferred. Being a statistical concept, the state cannot be obtained from a single system realization. It can be reconstructed from an ensemble of copies, by performing measurements on different realizations. Reconstructing the state of a set of trapped particles shielded from their environment is an important step for the investigation of the quantum to classical boundary. While trapped atom state reconstructions have been achieved, it is challenging to perfo…
Among the many proposals for the realization of a quantum computer, holonomic quantum computation (HQC) is distinguished from the rest in that it is geometrical in nature and thus expected to be robust against decoherence. Here we analyze the realization of various quantum gates by solving the inverse problem: Given a unitary matrix, we develop a formalism by which we find loops in the parameter space generating this matrix as a holonomy. We demonstrate for the first time that such a one-qubit gate as the Hadamard gate and such two-qubit gates as the CNOT gate, the SWAP gate and the discrete F…
Quantum state privacy amplification (QSPA) is the quantum analogue of classical privacy amplification. If the state information of a series of single particle states has some leakage, QSPA reduces this leakage by condensing the state information of two particles into the state of one particle. Recursive applications of the operations will eliminate the quantum state information leakage to a required minimum level. In this paper, we report the experimental implementation of a quantum state privacy amplification protocol in a nuclear magnetic resonance system. The density matrices of the states …
