A characteristic action $ΔS$ is defined whose magnitude determines some properties of the expectation value of a general quantum displacement operator. These properties are related to the capability of a given environmental `monitoring' system to induce decoherence in quantum systems coupled to it. We show that the scale for effective decoherence is given by $ΔS\approx\hbar$. We relate this characteristic action with a complementary quantity, $ΔZ$, and analyse their connection with the main features of the pattern of structures developed by the environmental state in different phase space representations. The relevance of the $ΔS$-action scale is illustrated using both a model quantum system solved numerically and a set of model quantum systems for which analytical expressions for the time-averaged expectation value of the displacement operator are obtained explicitly.
Motivated by Wallace's thesis that pilot wave beables should be decoherence-preferred to recover quantum predictions, we consider the relation between pilot wave beables and decoherence. We prove that without any connection between beables and decoherence the overlap between macrcopic states becomes negligible. This is sufficient to recover quantum predictions, so that Wallace's thesis has to be rejected. A natural connection between decoherence and beables appears if the decomposition into systems used by decoherence is based on the beables. While our first result becomes inapplicable in this…
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.
A relationship between the time scales of quantum coherence loss and short-time solvent response for a solute/bath system is derived for a Gaussian wave packet approximation for the bath. Decoherence and solvent response times are shown to be directly proportional to each other, with the proportionality coefficient given by the ratio of the thermal energy fluctuations to the fluctuations in the system-bath coupling. The relationship allows the prediction of decoherence times for condensed phase chemical systems from well developed experimental methods.
We discuss fluctuations in the measurement process and how these fluctuations are related to the dissipational parameter characterising quantum damping or decoherence. On the example of the measuring current of the variable-barrier or QPC problem we show there is an extra noise or fluctuation connected with the possible different outcomes of a measurement. This noise has an enhanced short time component which could be interpreted as due to ``telegraph noise'' or ``wavefunction collapses''. Furthermore the parameter giving the the strength of this noise is related to the parameter giving the ra…
We derive an influence action for the heat diffusion equation and from its spectral dependence show that long wavelength hydrodynamic modes are most readily decohered. The result is independent of the details of the microscopic dynamics, and follows from general principles alone.
It is well-known that the pointer basis of a quantum system satisfies the condition to diagonalize the interaction Hamiltonian between the subsystems. We show that this condition can be translated into the form $δΛ=0,$ where $Λ$, so-called the action, is the time integrated interaction energy: it is found out naturally in the phase of state vectors due to diagonal interaction. The careful treatment of a two states system demonstrates that the states of the total system branch into the states with different values of the action. Mathematically the pointer states are selected out by the saddle p…
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…
We show that, for a Quantum Markov Semigroup (QMS) with a faithful normal invariant state, the atomicity of the decoherence-free subalgebra and environmental decoherence are equivalent. Moreover, we characterize the set of reversible states and explicitly describe the relationship between the decoherence-free subalgebra and the fixed point subalgebra for QMSs with the above equivalent properties.
Decoherence in Markovian systems can result indirectly from the action of a system Hamiltonian which is usually fixed and unavoidable. Here, we show that in general in Markovian systems, because of the system Hamiltonian, quantum information decoheres. We give conditions for the system Hamiltonian that must be satisfied if coherence is to be preserved. Finally, we show how to construct robust subspaces for quantum information processing.
Recently some authors have pointed out that there exist nonclassical correlations which are more general, and possibly more fundamental, than entanglement. For these general quantum correlations and their classical counterparts, under the action of decoherence, we identify three general types of dynamics that include a peculiar sudden change in their decay rates. We show that, under suitable conditions, the classical correlation is unaffected by decoherence. Such dynamic behavior suggests an operational measure of both classical and quantum correlations that can be computed without any extremi…
We study the relation between the sudden death and revival of the entanglement of two qubits in a common squeezed reservoir, and the normal decoherence, by getting closer to the Decoherence Free Subspace and calculating the effect on the death and revival times.
We propose an efficient method to protect spin squeezing under the action of amplitude-damping, depolarizing and phase-damping channels based on measurement reversal from weak measurement, and consider an ensemble of N independent spin-1/2 particles with exchange symmetry. We find that spin squeezing can be enhanced greatly under three different decoherence channels and spin-squeezing sudden death (SSSD) can be avoided undergoing amplitude damping and phase-damping channels.
A generalized formal framework for decoherence, that can be used both in open and closed quantum systems, is sketched. In this context, the relationship between the decoherence of a closed system and the decoherence of its subsystems is studied, and the corresponding decoherence times are defined: for macroscopic systems, the decoherence time of the closed system is much greater than the decoherence time of its subsystems. Finally, it is shown that the application of the new formal framework to a well-known model leads to physically adequate results.
Taming decoherence is essential in realizing quantum computation and quantum communication. Here we experimentally demonstrate that decoherence due to amplitude damping can be suppressed by exploiting quantum measurement reversal in which a weak measurement and the reversing measurement are introduced before and after the decoherence channel, respectively. We have also investigated the trade-off relation between the degree of decoherence suppression and the channel transmittance.
We consider maximal violations of the Leggett-Garg inequality, obtained by maximising over all possible measurement operators, in relation to non-unitary aspects of the system dynamics. We model the action of an environment on a qubit in terms of generic quantum channels and relate the maximal value of the Leggett-Garg correlator to the channel parameters. We focus on unital channels, and hence on decoherence. In certain important cases, exact relations between the channel parameters and maximal violations can be found. Moreover, we demonstrate the existence of distinct thresholds for the chan…
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…
For a wide set of quantum systems it is demonstrated that the quantum regime can be considered as the transient phase while the final classical statistical regime is a permanent state. A basis where exact matrix decoherence appears for these final states is found. The relation with the decoherence of histories formalism is studied. A set of final intrinsically consistent histories is found.
When the environmental disturbace to a quantum system has a wavelength much larger than the system size, all qubits localized within a small area are under action of the same error operators. Noiseless subsystem and decoherence free subspace are known to correct such collective errors. We construct simple quantum circuits, which implement these collective error correction codes, for a small number $n$ of physical qubits. A single logical qubit is encoded with $n=3$ and $n=4$, while two logical qubits are encoded with $n=5$. The recursive relations among the subspaces employed in noiseless subs…
Wave-particle duality is an essential character of quantum systems. In the last few years, much progress has being made towards formally quantifying these quantum features. The properties of the quantum density matrix were shown to lead to duality inequalities for single-quanton mixed states and to triality identities, also known as complete complementarity relations (CCRs), for two-quanton pure states. In this article, we establish connections between CCRs and EPR (ir)realism, as formalized by Bilobran and Angelo in [Europhys. Lett. 112, 40005 (2015)]. Besides, we show that, for tripartite pu…
We consider a quantum harmonic oscillator coupled to a general nonequilibrium environment. We show that the decoherence factor can be expressed in terms of a measurable effective temperature, defined via a generalized fluctuation-dissipation relation. We further propose a simple experimental scheme to determine the time-dependent effective temperature in a linear Paul trap with engineered reservoirs. Our formalism allows quantitative description of nonequilibrium decoherence in the presence of an arbitrary number of non-Markovian noise sources in a unified manner.
We check the decoherence dynamics of Measurement-induced Nonlocality(in short, MIN) and compare it with geometric discord for two qubit systems. There are quantum states, on which the action of dephasing channel cannot destroy MIN in finite or infinite time. We check the additive dynamics of MIN on a qubit state under two independent noise. Geometric discord also follows such additive dynamics like quantum discord. We have further compared non-Markovian evolution of MIN and geometric discord under dephasing and amplitude damping noise for pure state and it shows distinct differences between th…
We study decoherence of one, two, and $n$ non-interacting qubits. Decoherence, measured in terms of purity, is calculated in linear response approximation, making use of the spectator configuration. The environment and its interaction with the qubits are modelled by random matrices. For two qubits, numerical studies reveal a simple one to one correspondence between its decoherence and its internal entanglement decay. Using this relation we are able to give a formula for concurrence decay. For large environments the evolution induces a unital channel in the two qubits, providing a partial expla…
We show that private shared reference frames can be used to perform private quantum and private classical communication over a public quantum channel. Such frames constitute a novel type of private shared correlation (distinct from private classical keys or shared entanglement) useful for cryptography. We present optimally efficient schemes for private quantum and classical communication given a finite number of qubits transmitted over an insecure channel and given a private shared Cartesian frame and/or a private shared reference ordering of the qubits. We show that in this context, it is use…
We consider the description of quantum noise within the framework of the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to a composite system environment setting. Averaging over the environmental degrees of freedom leads to a stochastic quantum dynamics, described by equations complying with the constraints arising from the statistical structure of quantum mechanics. Simple examples are considered in the framework of open system dynamics described within a master equation approach, pointing in particular to the appearance of the phenomenon of decoherence and to the relevance o…
We investigate the relation between integrability and decoherence in central spin models with more than one central spin. We show that there is a transition between integrability ensured by the Bethe ansatz and integrability ensured by complete sets of commuting operators. This has a significant impact on the decoherence properties of the system, suggesting that it is not necessarily integrability or nonintegrability which is related to decoherence, but rather its type or a change from integrability to nonintegrability.
We study propagation of the decohering influence caused by a local measurement performed on a distributed quantum system. As an example, the gas of bosons forming a Bose-Einstein condensate is considered. We demonstrate that the local decohering perturbation exerted on the measured region propagates over the system in the form of a decoherence wave, whose dynamics is governed by elementary excitations of the system. We argue that the post-measurement evolution of the system (determined by elementary excitations) is of importance for transfer of decoherence, while the initial collapse of the wa…
Measurement processes can be separated into an entangling interaction between the system and a meter and a subsequent read-out of the meter state that does not involve any further interactions with the system. In the interval between these two stages, the system and the meter are in an entangled state that encodes all possible effects of the read-out in the form of non-local quantum correlations between the system and the meter. Here, we show that the entanglement generated in the system-meter interaction expresses a fundamental relation between the amount of decoherence and the conditional pr…
It is now widely accepted that environmental entanglement and the resulting decoherence processes play a crucial role in the quantum-to-classical transition and the emergence of "classicality" from quantum mechanics. To this extent, decoherence is often understood as signifying a break with the Copenhagen interpretation, and in particular with Bohr's view of the indispensability of classical concepts. This paper analyzes the relationship between Bohr's understanding of the quantum-classical divide and his doctrine of classical concepts and the decoherence-based program of emergent classicality…
We investigate cat codes that can correct multiple excitation losses and identify two types of logical errors: bit-flip errors due to excessive excitation loss and dephasing errors due to quantum back-action from the environment. We show that selected choices of logical subspace and coherent amplitude can efficiently reduce dephasing errors. The trade-off between the two major errors enables optimized performance of cat codes in terms of minimized decoherence. With high coupling efficiency, we show that one-way quantum repeaters with cat codes feature drastically boosted secure communication r…
Recent theoretical and experimental papers support the prevailing opinion that large warm systems will rapidly lose quantum coherence, and that classical properties will emerge. This rapid loss of coherence would naturally be expected to block any critical role for quantum theory in explaining the interaction between our conscious experiences and the physical activities of our brains. However, there is a quantum theory of mind in which the efficacy of mental effort is not affected by decoherence effects. In this theory the effects of mental action on brain activity is achieved by a Quantum Zen…
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 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…
When a quantum nonlinear system is linearly coupled to an infinite bath of harmonic oscillators, quantum coherence of the system is lost on a decoherence time-scale $τ_D$. Nevertheless, quantum effects for observables may still survive environment-induced decoherence, and be observed for times much larger than the decoherence time-scale. In particular, we show that the Ehrenfest time, which characterizes a departure of quantum dynamics for observables from the corresponding classical dynamics, can be observed for a quasi-classical nonlinear oscillator for times $τ\ggτ_D$. We discuss this obser…
Although nonequilibrium work and fluctuation relations have been studied in detail within classical statistical physics, extending these results to open quantum systems has proven to be conceptually difficult. For systems that undergo decoherence but not dissipation, we argue that it is natural to define quantum work exactly as for isolated quantum systems, using the two-point measurement protocol. Complementing previous theoretical analysis using quantum channels, we show that the nonequilibrium work relation remains valid in this situation, and we test this assertion experimentally using a s…
Decoherence is a fundamental obstacle to the implementation of large-scale and low-noise quantum information processing devices. In this work, we suggest an approach for suppressing errors by employing pre-processing and post-processing unitary operations, which precede and follow the action of a decoherence channel. In contrast to quantum error correction and measurement-based methods, the suggested approach relies on specifically designed unitary operators for a particular state without the need in ancillary qubits or post-selection procedures. We consider the case of decoherence channels ac…
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 reformulate the quantum Monty Hall problem in the presence of decoherence. The decoherence destroys the fairness of the game. A new Nash equilibrium for a particular strategy profile in the presence of decoherence emerges. It is shown that in the presence of decoherence under the action of amplitude damping channel, Bob's winning probability is always higher than three-forth, irrespective of Alice's strategy, if he does not switch to the other door and always wins for a fully decohered case of the channel. Depolarizing channel damps up Bob's winning probability and gets better off if he sti…
We describe quantum controllability under the influences of the quantum decoherence induced by the quantum control itself. It is shown that, when the controller is considered as a quantum system, it will entangle with its controlled system and then cause quantum decoherence in the controlled system. In competition with this induced decoherence, the controllability will be limited by some uncertainty relation in a well-armed quantum control process. In association with the phase uncertainty and the standard quantum limit, a general model is studied to demonstrate the possibility of realizing a …
In this paper we present a comprehensive analysis of the coherence phenomenon of two coupled dissipative oscillators. The action of a classical driving field on one of the oscillators is also analyzed. Master equations are derived for both regimes of weakly and strongly interacting oscillators from which interesting results arise concerning the coherence properties of the joint and the reduced system states. The strong coupling regime is required to achieve a large frequency shift of the oscillator normal modes, making it possible to explore the whole profile of the spectral density of the res…
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…
An array of ultracold polar molecules trapped in an external electric field is regarded as a promising carrier of quantum information. Under the action of this field, molecules are compelled to undergo pendular oscillations by the Stark effect. Particular attention has been paid to the influence of intrinsic decoherence on the model of linear polar molecular pendular states, thereby we evaluate the tripartite entanglement with negativity, as well as fidelity of bipartite quantum systems for input and output signals using electric dipole moments of polar molecules as qubits. According to this s…
We have recently shown that there is a limit to quantum coherence in many-particle spin qubits due to spontaneous symmetry breaking. These results were derived for the Lieb-Mattis spin model. Here we will show that the underlying mechanism of decoherence in systems with spontaneous symmetry breaking is in fact more general. We present here a generic route to finding the decoherence time associated with spontaneous symmetry breaking in many particle qubits, and subsequently we apply this approach to two model systems, indicating how the continuous symmetries in these models are spontaneously br…
Quantum temporal correlations exhibited by violations of Leggett-Garg Inequality (LGI) and Temporal Steering Inequality (TSI) are in general found to be non-increasing under decoherence channels when probed on two-qubit pure entangled states. We study the action of decoherence channels, such as amplitude damping, phase-damping and depolarising channels when partial memory is introduced in a way such that two consecutive uses of the channels are time-correlated. We show that temporal correlations demonstrated by violations of the above temporal inequalities can be protected against decoherence …
In a recent paper [Nature 412, 712 (2001)], Zurek has argued that (1) time evolution typically causes chaotic quantum systems to generate structure that varies on the scale of phase-space volume elements of size $(\hbar^2/A)^d$, where A is a classical action characteristic of the state and d is the number of degrees of freedom, and that (2) this structure implies that a small change in a phase-space coordinate X by an amount $δX \sim \hbar X/A$ generically results in an orthogonal state. While we agree with (1), we argue that (2) is not correct if the number of degrees of freedom is small. Our…
In this thesis concrete quantum systems are investigated in the framework of the environment induced decoherence. The focus is on the dynamics of highly nonclassical quantum states, the Wigner function of which are negative over some regions of their domains. One of the chosen physical systems is a diatomic molecule, where the potential energy of the nuclei is an anharmonic function of their distance. A system of two-level atoms, which can be important from the viewpoint of quantum information technology, is also investigated. A method is described that is valid in both systems and can determi…
Mathematical models of quantum computers such as a multidimensional quantum Turing machine and quantum circuits are described and its relations with lattice spin models are discussed. One of the main open problems one has to solve if one wants to build a quantum computer is the decoherence due to the coupling with the environment. We propose a possible solution of this problem by using a control of parameters of the system. This proposal is based on the analysis of the spin-boson Hamiltonian performed in the stochastic limit approximation.
Interferometric complementarity is known to be one of the most nonclassical manifestations of the quantum formalism. It is commonly known as wave-particle duality and has been studied presently from the perspective of quantum information theory where wave and particle nature of a quantum system, called quanton, are characterised by coherence and path distinguishability respectively. We here consider the effect of noisy detectors on the complementarity relation. We report that by suitably choosing the initial quanton and the detector states along with the proper interactions between the quanton…
Niels Bohr famously insisted on the indispensability of what he termed "classical concepts." In the context of the decoherence program, on the other hand, it has become fashionable to talk about the "dynamical emergence of classicality" from the quantum formalism alone. Does this mean that decoherence challenges Bohr's dictum -- for example, that classical concepts do not need to be assumed but can be derived? In this paper, we'll try to shed some light down the murky waters where formalism and philosophy mingle. To begin, we'll clarify the notion of classicality in the decoherence description…
The Lindblad approach to continuous quantum measurements is applied to a system composed of a two-level atom interacting with a stationary quantized electromagnetic field through a dispersive coupling fulfilling quantum nondemolition criteria. Two schemes of measurements are examined. The first one consists in measuring the atomic electric dipole, which indirectly allows one to infer the photon distribution inside the cavity. The second one schematizes a measurement of photon momentum, which permits to describe the atomic level distribution. Decoherence of the corresponding reduced density mat…
In this work we study several models of decoherence and how different quantum maps and algorithms react when perturbed by them. Following closely Ref. [1], generalizations of the three paradigmatic one single qubit quantum channels (these are the depolarizing channel, the phase damping channel and the amplitude damping channel) for the case of an arbitrarily-sized finite-dimensional Hilbert space are presented, as well as other types of noise in phase space. More specifically, Grover's search algorithm's response to decoherence is analyzed; together with those of a family of quantum versions o…
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…
The theory of decoherence attempts to explain the emergent classical behaviour of a quantum system interacting with its quantum environment. In order to formalize this mechanism we introduce the idea that the information preserved in an open quantum evolution (or channel) can be characterized in terms of observables of the initial system. We use this approach to show that information which is broadcast into many parts of the environment can be encoded in a single observable. This supports a model of decoherence where the pointer observable can be an arbitrary positive operator-valued measure (…
I investigate quantum decoherence in a one-body density matrix of a composite particle consisting of two correlated particles. Because of a two-body correlation in the composite particle, quantum decoherence occurs in the one-body density matrix that has been reduced from the two-body density matrix. As the delocalization of the distribution of the composite particle grows, the entanglement entropy increases, and the system can be well-described by a semi-classical approximation, wherein the center position of the composite particle can be regarded as a classical coordinate. I connect the quan…
The experiment of Etano et al which demonstrated the quantum Zeno effect (QZE) in an optical experiment was explained by Frerichs and Schenzle without invoking the wave function collapse. In this report it is proposed that the collapse does occur, and it can be explained by the `environment induced decoherence' theory. The environment here consists of the completely quantized field vacuum modes. The spontaneous emission life time of the atom sets a fundamental limit on the requirement of `continuous measurements' for QZE. This limit turns out to be related to the time-energy uncertainty relati…
