We discuss various definitions of decoherence and how it can be measured. We compare and contrast decoherence in quantum systems with an infinite number of eigenstates (such as the free particle and the oscillator) and spin systems. In the former case, we point out the essential difference between assuming "entanglement at all times" and entanglement with the reservoir occuring at some initial time. We also discuss optimum calculational techniques in both arenas.
We analyze the coherence properties of neutron wave packets, after they have interacted with a phase shifter undergoing different kinds of statistical fluctuations. We give a quantitative (and operational) definition of decoherence and compare it to the standard deviation of the distribution of the phase shifts. We find that in some cases the neutron ensemble is more coherent, even though it has interacted with a wider (i.e. more disordered) distribution of shifts. This feature is independent of the particular definition of decoherence: this is shown by proposing and discussing an alternative …
There are many formalisms to describe quantum decoherence. However, many of them give a non general and ad hoc definition of "pointer basis" or "moving preferred basis", and this fact is a problem for the decoherence program. In this paper we will consider quantum systems under a general theoretical framework for decoherence and we will present a tentative definition of the moving preferred basis. These ideas are implemented in a well-known open system model. The obtained decoherence and the relaxation times are defined and compared with those of the literature for the Lee- Friedrichs model.
The Ollivier-Poulin-Zurek definition of objectivity provides a philosophical basis for the environment as witness formulation of decoherence theory and hence for quantum Darwinism. It is shown that no account of the reference of the key terms in this definition can be given that does not render the definition either empty or circular. It is argued that this is not the fault of the language used, but of the assumption that the laws of physics are independent of Hilbert-space decomposition. All evidence suggests that this latter assumption is true. If it is, decoherence cannot explain the emerge…
There are many formalisms to describe quantum decoherence. However, many of them give a non general and ad hoc definition of "pointer basis" or "moving preferred basis", and this fact is a problem for the decoherence program. In this paper we will consider quantum systems under a general theoretical framework for decoherence and present a tentative very general definition of the moving preferred basis. which is implemented in a well known open system model. The obtained decoherence and the relaxation times are defined and compared with those of this model.
We discuss the possibility of making the {\it initial} definitions of mutually different (possibly interacting, or even entangled) systems in the context of decoherence theory. We point out relativity of the concept of elementary physical system as well as point out complementarity of the different possible divisions of a composite system into "subsystems", thus eventually sharpening the issue of 'what is system'.
According to our modal-Hamiltonian interpretation (MHI) of quantum mechanics, the Hamiltonian of the closed system defines the set of its definite-valued observables. This definition seems to be incompatible with the pointer basis selected by the environment-induced decoherence (EID) of the open system. In this paper we argue that decoherence can be understood from a closed system perspective which (i) shows that the incompatibility between MHI and EID is only apparent, and (ii) solves certain conceptual challenges that the EID program still has to face.
Within the decoherent histories formulation of quantum mechanics, we investigate necessary conditions for decoherence of arbitrarily long histories. We prove that fine-grained histories of arbitrary length decohere for all classical initial states if and only if the unitary evolution preserves classicality of states (using a natural formal definition of classicality). We give a counterexample showing that this equivalence does not hold for coarse-grained histories.
There are many formalisms to describe quantum decoherence. However, many of them give a non general and ad hoc definition of "pointer basis" or "moving preferred basis", and this fact is a problem for the decoherence program. In this paper we will consider quantum systems under a general theoretical framework for decoherence and present a very general definition of the moving preferred basis. In addition, this definition is implemented in a well known model and the time of decoherence and the relaxation time are defined and compared with those of this model.
Macroscopic behavior such as the lack of interference patterns has been attributed to "decoherence", a word with several possible definitions such as (1) the loss of off-diagonal density matrix elements, (2) the flow of information to the environment, (3) the loss of complementary information, and (4) the loss of the ability to create entanglement in a measurement. In this article, we attempt to unify these distinct definitions by providing general quantitative connections between them, valid for all finite-dimensional quantum systems or quantum processes. The most important application of our…
One of the challenges of the Environment-Induced Decoherence (EID) approach is to provide a simple general definition of the moving pointer basis or moving preferred basis. In this letter we prove that the study of the poles that produce the decaying modes in non-unitary evolution, could yield a general definition of the relaxation, the decoherence times, and the moving preferred basis. These probably are the most important concepts in the theory of decoherence, one of the most relevant chapters of theoretical (and also practical) quantum mechanics. As an example we solved the Omnes (or Lee-Fr…
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 …
A protocol for considering decoherence in quantum games is presented. Results for two-player, two-strategy quantum games subject to decoherence are derived and some specific examples are given. Decoherence in other types of quantum games is also considered. As expected, the advantage that a quantum player achieves over a player restricted to classical strategies is diminished for increasing decoherence but only vanishes in the limit of maximum decoherence.
We study a quantum repeater which is based on decoherence free quantum gates recently proposed by Klein et al. [Phys. Rev. A 73, 012332 (2006)]. A number of operations on the decoherence free subspace in this scheme makes use of an ancilla qubit, which undergoes dephasing and thus introduces decoherence to the system. We examine how this decoherence affects entanglement swapping and purification as well as the performance of a quantum repeater. We compare the decoherence free quantum repeater with a quantum repeater based on qubits that are subject to decoherence and show that it outperforms t…
Self-interactions and interaction with the environment tend to push quantum systems toward states of maximal entanglement. This is a definition of decoherence. We argue that these maximally entangled states fall into the well-defined classes that can be uniquely described by the values of certain entanglement invariants. After discussing these ideas we present examples of maximally entangled states for a number of generic systems, construct compact states in the most entangled classes for tripartite systems, and suggest how they may be constructed for other $n$-partite systems. We study random…
Quantum Fourier transform is of primary importance in many quantum algorithms. In order to eliminate the destructive effects of decoherence induced by couplings between the quantum system and its environment, we propose a robust scheme for quantum Fourier transform over the intrinsic decoherence-free subspaces. The scheme is then applied to the circuit design of quantum Fourier transform over quantum networks under collective decoherence. The encoding efficiency and possible improvements are also discussed.
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.
The following statements belonging to the folklore of the theory of environmental decoherence are shown to be incorrect: 1) linear coupling to harmonic oscillator bath is a universal model of decoherence, 2) chaotic environments are more efficient decoherers.
A direct classical analog of the quantum dynamics of intrinsic decoherence in Hamiltonian systems, characterized by the time dependence of the linear entropy of the reduced density operator, is introduced. The similarities and differences between the classical and quantum decoherence dynamics of an initial quantum state are exposed using both analytical and computational results. In particular, the classicality of early-time intrinsic decoherence dynamics is explored analytically using a second-order perturbative treatment, and an interesting connection between decoherence rates and the stabil…
The problem investigated in this paper is einselection, i. e. the selection of mutually exclusive quantum states with definite probabilities through decoherence. Its study is based on a theory of decoherence resulting from the projection method in the quantum theory of irreversible processes, which is general enough for giving reliable predictions. This approach leads to a definition (or redefinition) of the coupling with the environment involving only fluctuations. The range of application of perturbation calculus is then wide, resulting in a rather general master equation. Two distinct cases…
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 …
I give a pedagogical overview of decoherence and its role in providing a dynamical account of the quantum-to-classical transition. The formalism and concepts of decoherence theory are reviewed, followed by a survey of master equations and decoherence models. I also discuss methods for mitigating decoherence in quantum information processing and describe selected experimental investigations of decoherence processes.
The possible effect of environment on the efficiency of a quantum algorithm is considered explicitely. It is illustrated through the example of Shor's prime factorization algorithm that this effect may be disastrous. The influence of environment on quantum computation is probed on the basis of its analogy to the problem of wave function collapse in quantum measurement.Techniques from the Hepp-Colemen approach and its generalization are used to deal with decoherence problems in quantum computation including dynamic mechanism of decoherence, quantum error avoiding tricks and calculation of decoh…
We propose and analyse a robust quantum state transfer protocol by the use of a combination of coherent quantum coupling and decoherence-free subspaces in a coupled quantum spin chain. Under decoherence, an arbitrary unknown quantum state embedded in a decoherence-free subspace can be perfectly transferred through a noisy channel being weakly coupled to two end registers. The method protects quantum information from both the channel noise and the environmental decoherence. A special case of utilizing two physical qubits to encode one logical qubit is considered as an example and the robustness…
It is shown how environmental decoherence plays an essential and constructive role in a quantum mechanical theory of brain process that has significant explanatory power.
Griffiths' ``quantum trajectories'' formalism is extended to describe weak decoherence. The decoherence conditions are shown to severely limit the complexity of histories composed of fine-grained events.
A direct classical analog of quantum decoherence is introduced. Similarities and differences between decoherence dynamics examined quantum mechanically and classically are exposed via a second-order perturbative treatment and via a strong decoherence theory, showing a strong dependence on the nature of the system-environment coupling. For example, for the traditionally assumed linear coupling, the classical and quantum results are shown to be in exact agreement.
Decoherence in quantum computer memory due to the inevitable coupling to the external environment is examined. We take the assumption that all quantum bits (qubits) interact with the same environment rather than the assumption of separate environments for different qubits. It is found that the qubits are decohered collectively. For some kinds of entangled input states, no decoherence occurs at all in the memory even if the qubits are interacting with the environment. Based on this phenomenon, a scheme is proposed for reducing the collective decoherence. We also discuss possible implications of…
In the framework of the Lindblad theory for open quantum systems, we determine the degree of quantum decoherence of a harmonic oscillator interacting with a thermal bath. It is found that the system manifests a quantum decoherence which is more and more significant in time. We calculate also the decoherence time scale and analyze the transition from quantum to classical behaviour of the considered system.
In this paper we study decoherence in the quantum walk on the line. We generalize the method of decoherent coin quantum walk, introduced by Brun et al [Phys. Rev. A {\bf 67}, 32304 (2003)]. Our analytical expressions are applicable for all kinds of decoherence. As an example of the coin-position decoherence, we study the broken line quantum walk and compare our results with the numerical one. We also show that our analytical results reduce to the Brun formalism when only the coin is subjected to decoherence.
When the nonlinearity of nanomechanical resonator is not negligible, the quantum decoherence of charge qubit is studied analytically. Using nonlinear Jaynes-Cummings model, one explores the possibility of being quantum data bus for nonlinear nanomechanical resonator, the nonlinearity destroys the dynamical quantum information-storage and maintains the revival of quantum coherence of charge qubit. With the calculation of decoherence factor, we demonstrate the influence of the nonlinearity of nanomechanical resonator on engineered decoherence of charge qubit.
We have studied how decoherence affects a quantum walk on the line. As expected, it is highly sensitive, consisting as it does of an extremely delocalized particle. We obtain an expression for the rate at which the standard deviation falls from the quantum value as decoherence increases and show that it is proportional to the number of decoherence "events" occuring during the walk.
To resist decoherence from destroying the phase factor of qubit state, it is important to use decoherence-free states for processing, transmitting and storing quantum information in quantum computing and quantum communication. We propose a practical scheme using four atoms with decoherence-free states in a single-mode cavity to realize the entanglement and fundamental quantum logic gates. The transmission of quantum information can be made directly from one atom to another, in which the cavity is only virtually excited. The possible application and the experimental requirement of our proposal …
Two initially correlated coherent states, each interacting with its own independent dissipative environment exhibit a sudden transition from classical to quantum decoherence. This change in the dynamics is a turning point in the decoherence, in the sense that depending on the average number of photons of each cavity, decoherence can even be suppressed. Indeed, the quantum state is time-independent for a time span in the mesoscopic regime, revealing a decoherence-free subspace. Furthermore, the absence of decoherence is manifested in the apparition of a metastable pointer state basis.
Marshall et al. gedanken experiment of the quantum superpposition of a mirror (oscilating part of a Michelson interferometer) interacting with single photon is consequently interpreted by relative decoherence.Such relative decoherence (based on the spontaneous superposition breaking (effective hiding)) on the photon (quantum object) caused by mirror (measurement device) is sufficient to model real measurement.
New feasible cavity QED experiment is proposed to analyse reversible quantum decoherence in consequence of quantum complementarity and entanglement. Utilizing the phase selective manipulations with enviroment, it is demonstrated how the complementarity particularly induces a preservation of visibility, whereas quantum decoherence is more progressive due to pronounced entanglement between system and enviroment. This effect can be directly observed using the proposed cavity QED measurements.
In the framework of the Lindblad theory for open quantum systems, we determine the degree of quantum decoherence of a harmonic oscillator interacting with a thermal bath. It is found that the system manifests a quantum decoherence which is more and more significant in time. We also calculate the decoherence time and show that it has the same scale as the time after which thermal fluctuations become comparable with quantum fluctuations.
An open ended spin chain can serves as a quantum data bus for the coherent transfer of quantum state information. In this paper, we investigate the efficiency of such quantum spin channels which work in a decoherence environment. Our results show that, the decoherence will significantly reduce the fidelity of quantum communication through the spin channels. Generally speaking, as the distance increases, the decoherence effects become more serious, which will put some constraints on the spin chains for long distance quantum state transfer.
We suggest that propagation of nonclassical light in lattices of optical waveguides can provide a laboratory tool to simulate quantum decoherence phenomena with high non-Markovian features. As examples, we study decoherence of optical Schrödinger cats in a lattice that mimics a dissipative quantum harmonic oscillator coupled to a quantum bath, showing fractional decoherence in the strong coupling regime, and Bloch oscillations of optical Schrödinger cats, where damped revivals of the coherence can be observed.
We propose a new approach to the implementation of quantum gates in which decoherence during the gate operations is strongly reduced. This is achieved by making use of an environment induced quantum Zeno effect that confines the dynamics effectively to a decoherence-free subspace.
It is shown that the noise process in quantum computation can be described by spatially correlated decoherence and dissipation. We demonstrate that the conventional quantum error correcting codes correcting for single-qubit errors are applicable for reducing spatially correlated noise.
Decoherence phenomenon has been widely studied in different types of quantum walks. In this work we show how to model decoherence inspired by percolation on staggered quantum walks. Two models of unitary noise are described: breaking polygons and breaking vertices. The evolution operators subject to these noises are obtained and the equivalence to the coined quantum walk model is presented. Further, we numerically analyze the effect of these decoherence models on the two-dimensional grid of $4$-cliques. We examine how these perturbations affect the quantum walk based search algorithm in this g…
We criticize the Hameroff Penrose model in the context of quantum brain model by gravitational collapse orchestrated objective reduction, orch. OR, assumed by Penrose, and we propose instead that the decoherence process is caused by interaction with the environment. We consider it useful to exploit this possibility because of the growing importance of decoherence theory in quantum measurement, and also because quantum mechanics can be applied to brain study independently of the Hameroff Penrose model for mind and consciousness. Our conclusion is that the Hameroff Penrose model is not compatibl…
An effective force induced by spatially depending decoherence is predicted. The phenomenon is illustrated by a simple model of a 1/2-spin particle subjected to distributed unselective measurement of noncommuting spin components.
Quantum computation that combines the coherence stabilization virtues of decoherence-free subspaces and the fault tolerance of geometric holonomic control is of great practical importance. Some schemes of adiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces have been proposed in the past few years. However, non-adiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces, which avoids long run-time requirement but with all the robust advantages, remains an open problem. Here, we demonstrate how to realize non-adiabatic holonomic quantum computation in decoherence-free…
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.
A scheme to implement a quantum computer subjected to decoherence and governed by an untunable qubit-qubit interaction is presented. By concatenating dynamical decoupling through bang-bang (BB) pulse with decoherence-free subspaces (DFSs) encoding, we protect the quantum computer from environment-induced decoherence that results in quantum information dissipating into the environment. For the inherent qubit-qubit interaction that is untunable in the quantum system, BB control plus DFSs encoding will eliminate its undesired effect which spoils quantum information in qubits. We show how this qua…
Liquid-state NMR quantum computer has demonstrated the possibility of quantum computation and supported its development. Using NMR quantum computer techniques, we observed phase decoherence under two kinds of artificial noise fields; one a noise with a long period, and the other with shorter random period. The first one models decoherence in a quantum channel while the second one models transverse relaxation. We demonstrated that the bang-bang control suppresses decoherence in both cases.
We give an elementary account of quantum measurement and related topics from the modern perspective of decoherence. The discussion should be comprehensible to students who have completed a basic course in quantum mechanics with exposure to concepts such as Hilbert space, density matrices, and von Neumann projection (``wavefunction collapse'').
We prove analytical results showing that decoherence can be useful for mixing time in a continuous-time quantum walk on finite cycles. This complements the numerical observations by Kendon and Tregenna (Physical Review A 67 (2003), 042315) of a similar phenomenon for discrete-time quantum walks. Our analytical treatment of continuous-time quantum walks includes a continuous monitoring of all vertices that induces the decoherence process. We identify the dynamics of the probability distribution and observe how mixing times undergo the transition from quantum to classical behavior as our decoher…
The second order quantum decoherence (SOQDC)is proposed as a novel description for the loss of quantum coherence only reflected by second order quantum correlations. By calculating the two-time correlation function, the phenomenon of SOQDC is studied in details for a simple model, a two boson system interacting with a reservoir composed of one or many bosons. The second order quantum decoherence effects can be observed in the sketched cavity QED experiment.
We analyze the long time behavior of a discrete time quantum walk subject to decoherence with a strong spatial dependence, acting on one half of the lattice. We show that, except for limiting cases on the decoherence parameter, the quantum walk at late times behaves sub-ballistically, meaning that the characteristic features of the quantum walk are not completely spoiled. Contrarily to expectations, the asymptotic behavior is non Markovian, and depends on the amount of decoherence. This feature can be clearly shown on the long time value of the Generalized Chiral Distribution (GCD).
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 show how to realize, by means of non-abelian quantum holonomies, a set of universal quantum gates acting on decoherence-free subspaces and subsystems. In this manner we bring together the quantum coherence stabilization virtues of decoherence-free subspaces and the fault-tolerance of all-geometric holonomic control. We discuss the implementation of this scheme in the context of quantum information processing using trapped ions and quantum dots.
In this thesis we describe methods for avoiding the detrimental effects of decoherence while at the same time still allowing for computation of the quantum information. The philosophy of the method discussed in the first part of this thesis is to use a symmetry of the decoherence mechanism to find robust encodings of the quantum information. Stability, control, and methods for using decoherence-free information in a quantum computer are presented with a specific emphasis on decoherence due to a collective coupling between the system and its environment. Universal quantum computation on such co…
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.
Coherent interaction of a quantum system with environment usually induces quantum decoherence. However, remarkably, in certain configurations the coherent system-environment coupling can be simultaneously explored to engineer a specific dark state of the environment that eliminates the decoherence. Here we report on experimental demonstration of such protocol for suppression of quantum decoherence by quantum decoherence itself. The protocol is based on indirect control of the environment via quantum measurements on quantum probes interacting with the environment prior to the system that should…
A popular model of decoherence based on the linear coupling to harmonic oscillator heat baths is analized and shown to be inappropriate in the regime where decoherence dominates over energy dissipation, called pure decoherence regime. The similar mechanism essentially related to the energy conservation implies that, on the contrary to the recent conjectures, chaotic environments can be less efficient decoherers than regular ones. Finally, the elastic scattering mechanism is advocated as the simplest source of pure decoherence.
By making the second quantization for the Cini Model of quantum measurement without wave function collapse [M. Cini, Nuovo Cimento, B73 27(1983)], the second order quantum decoherence (SOQD) is studied with a two mode boson system interacting with an idealized apparatus composed by two quantum oscillators. In the classical limit that the apparatus is prepared in a Fock state with a very large quantum number, or in a coherent state with average quantum numbers large enough, the SOQD phenomenon appears similar to the first order case of quantum decoherence.
