We use the uniform semiclassical approximation in order to derive the fidelity decay in the regime of large perturbations.
Numerical computations are presented which agree with our theoretical predictions.
Moreover, our theory allows to explain previous findings, such as the deviation from the Lyapunov decay rate in cases where the classical finite-time instability is non-uniform in phase space.
The fidelity amplitude is a quantity of paramount importance in echo type experiments. We use semiclassical theory to study the average fidelity amplitude for quantum chaotic systems under external perturbation. We explain analytically two extreme cases: the random dynamics limit --attained approximately by strongly chaotic systems-- and the random perturbation limit, which shows a Lyapunov decay. Numerical simulations help us bridge the gap between both extreme cases.
We study fidelity decay by a uniform semiclassical approach, in the three perturbation regimes, namely, the perturbative regime, the Fermi-golden-rule (FGR) regime, and the Lyapunov regime. A semiclassical expression is derived for fidelity of initial Gaussian wave packets with width of the order $\sqrt{\hbar}$ ($\hbar$ being the effective Planck constant). Short time decay of fidelity of initial Gaussian wave packets is also studied, with respect to two time scales introduced in the semiclassical approach. In the perturbative regime, it is confirmed numerically that fidelity has the FGR decay…
We present a numerically feasible semiclassical (SC) method to evaluate quantum fidelity decay (Loschmidt echo, FD) in a classically chaotic system. It was thought that such evaluation would be intractable, but instead we show that a uniform SC expression not only is tractable but it gives remarkably accurate numerical results for the standard map in both the Fermi-golden-rule and Lyapunov regimes. Because it allows Monte Carlo evaluation, the uniform expression is accurate at times when there are 10^70 semiclassical contributions. Remarkably, it also explicitly contains the ``building blocks'…
This paper presents a unified semiclassical framework for five regimes of quantum fidelity decay and conjectures a new universal regime. The theory is based solely on the statistics of actions in the dephasing representation. Counterintuitively, in this representation, all of the decay is due to interference and none due to the decay of classical overlaps. Both rigorous and numerical support of the theory is provided.
In certain regimes, the fidelity of quantum states will decay at a rate set by the classical Lyapunov exponent. This serves both as one of the most important examples of the quantum-classical correspondence principle and as an accurate test for the presence of chaos. While detecting this phenomenon is one of the first useful calculations that noisy quantum computers without error correction can perform [G. Benenti et al., Phys. Rev. E 65, 066205 (2001)], a thorough study of the quantum sawtooth map reveals that observing the Lyapunov regime is just beyond the reach of present-day devices. We p…
The Loschmidt echo (LE) is a magnitude that measures the sensitivity of quantum dynamics to perturbations in the Hamiltonian. For a certain regime of the parameters, the LE decays exponentially with a rate given by the Lyapunov exponent of the underlying classically chaotic system. We develop a semiclassical theory, supported by numerical results in a Lorentz gas model, which allows us to establish and characterize the universality of this Lyapunov regime. In particular, the universality is evidenced by the semiclassical limit of the Fermi wavelength going to zero, the behavior for times longe…
Based on Lyapunov control theory in closed and open systems, we propose a scheme to generate W state of many distant atoms in the cavity-fiber-cavity system. In the closed system, the W state is generated successfully even when the coupling strength between the cavity and fiber is extremely weak. In the presence of atomic spontaneous emission or cavity and fiber decay, the photon-measurement and quantum feedback approaches are proposed to improve the fidelity, which enable efficient generation of high-fidelity W state in the case of large dissipation. Furthermore, the time-optimal Lyapunov con…
The Loschmidt echo is a measure of the stability and reversibility of quantum evolution under perturbations of the Hamiltonian. One of the expected and most relevant characteristics of this quantity for chaotic systems is an exponential decay with a perturbation independent decay rate given by the classical Lyapunov exponent. However, a non-uniform decay -- instead of the Lyapunov regime -- has been reported in several systems. In this work we find an analytical semiclassical expression for the averaged fidelity amplitude that can be related directly to the anomalous -- unexpected-- behaviour …
The Loschmidt echo -- also known as fidelity -- is a very useful tool to study irreversibility in quantum mechanics due to perturbations or imperfections. Many different regimes, as a function of time and strength of the perturbation, have been identified. For chaotic systems, there is a range of perturbation strengths where the decay of the Loschmidt echo is perturbation independent, and given by the classical Lyapunov exponent. But observation of the Lyapunov decay depends strongly on the type of initial state upon which an average is done. This dependence can be removed by averaging the fid…
Based on the Lyapunov control, we present a scheme to realize state transfer with high fidelity by only modulating the boundary spins in a quantum spin-1/2 chain. Recall that the conventional transmission protocols aim at nonstationary state (or information) transfer from the first spin to the end spin at a fixed time. The present scheme possesses the following advantages. First, the scheme does not require precise manipulations of the control time. Second, it is robust against uncertainties in the initial states and fluctuations in the control fields. Third, the controls are exerted only on t…
Taking a two-level system as an example, we show that a strong control field may enhance the efficiency of optimal Lyapunov quantum control in [Hou et al., Phys. Rev. A \textbf{86}, 022321 (2012)] but could decrease its control fidelity. A relationship between the strength of the control field and the control fidelity is established. An extended technique, which combines free evolution and external control, is proposed to improve the control fidelity. We analytically demonstrate that the extended technique can be used to design a control law for steering a two-level system exactly to the targe…
The out-of-time-order correlator (OTOC), recently analyzed in several physical contexts, is studied for low-dimensional chaotic systems through semiclassical expansions and numerical simulations. The semiclassical expansion for the OTOC yields a leading-order contribution in $\hbar^2$ that is exponentially increasing with time within an intermediate, temperature-dependent, time-window. The growth-rate in such a regime is governed by the Lyapunov exponent of the underlying classical system and scales with the square-root of the temperature.
The existence of a quantum butterfly effect in the form of exponential sensitivity to small perturbations has been under debate for a long time. Lately, this question gained increased interest due to the proposal to probe chaotic dynamics and scrambling using out-of-time-order correlators. In this work we study echo dynamics in the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model under effective time reversal in a semiclassical approach. We demonstrate that small imperfections introduced in the time-reversal procedure result in an exponential divergence from the perfect echo, which allows to identify a Lyapunov expone…
We study, analytically and numerically, the stability of quantum motion for a classically chaotic system. We show the existence of different regimes of fidelity decay which deviate from Fermi Golden rule and Lyapunov decay.
We propose to measure the importance of spin-orbit couplings (SOCs) in the nonadiabatic molecular quantum dynamics rigorously with quantum fidelity. To make the criterion practical, quantum fidelity is estimated efficiently with the multiple-surface dephasing representation (MSDR). The MSDR is a semiclassical method that includes nuclear quantum effects through interference of mixed quantum-classical trajectories without the need for the Hessian of potential energy surfaces. Two variants of the MSDR are studied, in which the nuclei are propagated either with the fewest-switches surface hopping…
Using a semiclassical ansatz we analytically predict for the fidelity of delta-kicked rotors the occurrence of revivals and the disappearance of intermediate revival peaks arising from the breaking of a symmetry in the initial conditions. A numerical verification of the predicted effects is given and experimental ramifications are discussed.
In this letter we analyse the behavior of fidelity decay under a very specific kind of perturbation: phase space displacements. Under these perturbations, systems will decay following the Lyapunov regime only. Others universal regimes discussed in the literature are not presented in this case; instead, for small values of the perturbation we observe quantum freeze of the fidelity. We also show that it is possible to connect this result with the incoherent neutron scattering problem
We present a framework for understanding the dynamics of operator size, and bounding the growth of out-of-time-ordered correlators, in models of large-$S$ spins. Focusing on the dynamics of a single spin, we show the finiteness of the Lyapunov exponent in the large-$S$ limit; our bounds are tighter than the best known Lieb-Robinson-type bounds on these systems. We numerically find our upper bound on Lyapunov exponents is within an order of magnitude of numerically computed values in classical and quantum kicked top models. Generalizing our results to coupled large-$S$ spins on lattices, we sho…
We study the crossover of the quantum Loschmidt echo (or fidelity) from the golden rule regime to the perturbation-independent exponential decay regime by using the kicked top model. It is shown that the deviation of the perturbation-independent decay of the averaged fidelity from the Lyapunov decay results from quantum fluctuations in individual fidelity, which are caused by the coherence in the initial coherent states. With an averaging procedure suppressing the quantum fluctuations effectively, the perturbation-independent decay is found to be close to the Lyapunov decay. We also show that …
We study the quantum dissipative Duffing oscillator across a range of system sizes and environmental couplings under varying semiclassical approximations. Using spatial (based on Kullback-Leibler distances between phase-space attractors) and temporal (Lyapunov exponent-based) complexity metrics, we isolate the effect of the environment on quantum-classical differences. Moreover, we quantify the system sizes where quantum dynamics cannot be simulated using semiclassical or noise-added classical approximations. Remarkably, we find that a parametrically invariant meta-attractor emerges at a speci…
The Loschmidt echo is a measure of quantum irreversibility and is determined by the fidelity amplitude of an imperfect time-reversal protocol. Fidelity amplitude plays an important role both in the foundations of quantum mechanics and its applications, such as time-resolved electronic spectroscopy. We derive an exact path integral formula for the fidelity amplitude and use it to obtain a series of increasingly accurate semiclassical approximations by truncating an exact expansion of the path integral exponent. While the zeroth-order expansion results in a remarkably simple, yet nontrivial appr…
We propose to measure nonadiabaticity of molecular quantum dynamics rigorously with the quantum fidelity between the Born-Oppenheimer and fully nonadiabatic dynamics. It is shown that this measure of nonadiabaticity applies in situations where other criteria, such as the energy gap criterion or the extent of population transfer, fail. We further propose to estimate this quantum fidelity efficiently with a generalization of the dephasing representation to multiple surfaces. Two variants of the multiple-surface dephasing representation (MSDR) are introduced, in which the nuclei are propagated ei…
Motivated by neutron scattering experiments, we investigate the decay of the fidelity with which a wave packet is reconstructed by a perfect time-reversal operation performed after a phase space displacement. In the semiclassical limit, we show that the decay rate is generically given by the Lyapunov exponent of the classical dynamics. For small displacements, we additionally show that, following a short-time Lyapunov decay, the decay freezes well above the ergodic value because of quantum effects. Our analytical results are corroborated by numerical simulations.
We study the stability of quantum motion of classically regular systems in presence of small perturbations. Onthe base of a uniform semiclassical theory we derive the fidelity decay which displays a quite complexbehaviour, from Gaussian to power law decay $t^{-α}$ with $1 \le α\le 2$. Semiclassical estimates are given for the time scales separating the different decaying regions and numerical results are presented which confirm our theoretical predictions.
Two particles, initially in a product state, become entangled when they come together and start to interact. Using semiclassical methods, we calculate the time evolution of the corresponding reduced density matrix $ρ_1$, obtained by integrating out the degrees of freedom of one of the particles. To quantify the generation of entanglement, we calculate the purity ${\cal P}(t)={\rm Tr}[ρ_1(t)^2]$. We find that entanglement generation sensitively depends (i) on the interaction potential, especially on its strength and range, and (ii) on the nature of the underlying classical dynamics. Under gener…
We study the decay rate of the Loschmidt echo or fidelity in a chaotic system under a time-dependent perturbation $V(q,t)$ with typical strength $\hbar/τ_{V}$. The perturbation represents the action of an uncontrolled environment interacting with the system, and is characterized by a correlation length $ξ_0$ and a correlation time $τ_0$. For small perturbation strengths or rapid fluctuating perturbations, the Loschmidt echo decays exponentially with a rate predicted by the Fermi Golden Rule, $1/\tildeτ= τ_{c}/τ_{V}^2$, where typically $τ_{c} \sim \min[τ_{0},ξ_0/v]$ with $v$ the particle veloci…
Quantum Lyapunov control was developed in order to transform a quantum system from arbitrary initial states to a target state. The idea is to find control fields that steer the Lyapunov function to zero as $t\rightarrow \infty$, meanwhile the quantum system is driven to the target state. In order to shorten the time required to reach the target state, we propose two designs to optimize Lyapunov control in this paper. The first design makes the Lyapunov function decrease as fast as possible with a constraint on the total power of control fields, and the second design has the same purpose but wi…
The Loschmidt echo (LE) is a measure of the sensitivity of quantum mechanics to perturbations in the evolution operator. It is defined as the overlap of two wave functions evolved from the same initial state but with slightly different Hamiltonians. Thus, it also serves as a quantification of irreversibility in quantum mechanics. In this thesis the LE is studied in systems that have a classical counterpart with dynamical instability, that is, classically chaotic. An analytical treatment that makes use of the semiclassical approximation is presented. It is shown that, under certain regime of th…
We use the semiclassical method proposed in \cite{Adelcio2003} to study scalar products such as the overlap, Husimi functions and fidelity decay. Scars of classical periodic orbits arise naturally in this pertubative expansion. We also derive analytically a well known numerical result that fidelity has a quadratic decay for short times. We study the overlap in the chaotic regime and integrable for some simple systems.
The stability of quantum systems to perturbations of the Hamiltonian is studied. This stability is quantified by the fidelity. Dependence of fidelity on the initial state as well as on the dynamical properties of the system is considered. In particular, systems having a chaotic or regular classical limit are analysed. The fidelity decay rate is given by an integral of the correlation function of the perturbation and is thus smaller the faster correlation function decays. If the perturbation can be written as a time derivative of another operator, meaning that the time averaged perturbation van…
We discuss the behavior of fidelity for a classically chaotic quantum system in the metallic regime. We show the existence of a critical value of the perturbation below which the exponential decay of fidelity is determined by the width of the Breit-Wigner distribution and above which the quantum decay follows the classical one which is ruled by the Lyapunov exponent. The independence of the decay {\it rate} from the perturbation strength derives from the similarity of the quantum and classical relaxation process inside the Heisenberg time scale.
We discuss quantum fidelity decay of classically regular dynamics, in particular for an important special case of a vanishing time averaged perturbation operator, i.e. vanishing expectation values of the perturbation in the eigenbasis of unperturbed dynamics. A complete semiclassical picture of this situation is derived in which we show that the quantum fidelity of individual coherent initial states exhibits three different regimes in time: (i) first it follows the corresponding classical fidelity up to time t1=hbar^(-1/2), (ii) then it freezes on a plateau of constant value, (iii) and after a…
We analyze the stability of a quantum algorithm simulating the quantum dynamics of a system with different regimes, ranging from global chaos to integrability. We compare, in these different regimes, the behavior of the fidelity of quantum motion when the system's parameters are perturbed or when there are unitary errors in the quantum gates implementing the quantum algorithm. While the first kind of errors has a classical limit, the second one has no classical analogue. It is shown that, whereas in the first case (``classical errors'') the decay of fidelity is very sensitive to the dynamical …
We report the experimental implementation of the Dicke model in the semiclassical approximation, which describes a large number of two-level atoms interacting with a single-mode electromagnetic field in a perfectly reflecting cavity. This is managed by making use of two non-linearly coupled active, synthetic LC circuits, implemented by means of analog electrical components. The simplicity and versatility of our platform allows us not only to experimentally explore the coexistence of regular and chaotic trajectories in the Dicke model but also to directly observe the so-called ground-state and …
