We discuss the dephasing induced by the internal classical chaotic motion in the absence of any external environment. To this end we consider a suitable extension of fidelity for mixed states which is measurable in a Ramsey interferometry experiment. We then relate the dephasing to the decay of this quantity which, in the semiclassical limit, is expressed in terms of an appropriate classical correlation function. Our results are derived analytically for the example of a nonlinear driven oscillator and then numerically confirmed for the kicked rotor model.
We design a computational experiment in which a quantum particle tunnels into a billiard of variable shape and scatters out of it through a double-slit opening on the billiard's base. The interference patterns produced by the scattered probability currents for a range of energies are investigated in relation to the billiard's geometry which is connected to its classical integrability. Four billiards with hierarchical integrability levels are considered: integrable, pseudo-integrable, weak-mixing and strongly chaotic. In agreement with the earlier result by Casati and Prosen [1], we find the bi…
In this article we treat the subject of chaotic environments with few degrees of freedom in quantum communication by investigating a conservative dynamical map as a model of a dephasing quantum channel. When the channel's dynamics is chaotic, we investigate the model's semi-classical limit and show that the entropy exchange grows at a constant rate which depends on a single parameter (the interaction strength), analogous to stochastic models of dephasing channels. We analyze memory effects in the channel and present strong physical arguments to support that the present model is forgetful in th…
We examine whether the chaotic behavior of classical systems with a limited number of degrees of freedom can produce quantum dephasing, against the conventional idea that dephasing takes place only in large systems with a huge number of constituents and complicated internal interactions. On the basis of this analysis, we briefly discuss the possibility of defining quantum chaos and of inventing a ``chaos detector".
We study the dynamics of the entanglement between two qubits coupled to a common chaotic environment, described by the quantum kicked rotator model. We show that the kicked rotator, which is a single-particle deterministic dynamical system, can reproduce the effects of a pure dephasing many-body bath. Indeed, in the semiclassical limit the interaction with the kicked rotator can be described as a random phase-kick, so that decoherence is induced in the two-qubit system. We also show that our model can efficiently simulate non-Markovian environments.
Ergodicity is a fundamental principle of statistical mechanics underlying the behavior of generic quantum many-body systems. However, how this universal many-body quantum chaotic regime emerges due to interactions remains largely a puzzle. This paper demonstrates using both heuristic arguments and a microscopic calculation that a dephasing mechanism, similar to Altshuler-Aronov-Khmelnitskii dephasing in the theory of localization, underlies this transition to chaos. We focus on the behavior of the spectral form factor (SFF) as a function of "time", t, which characterizes level correlations in …
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.
Due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, various classical systems differing only on the scale smaller than Planck's cell correspond to the same quantum system. This fact is used to find a unique semiclassical representation without the Van Vleck determinant, applicable to a large class of correlation functions expressible as quantum fidelity. As in the Feynman path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, all contributing trajectories have the same amplitude: that is why it is denoted the ``dephasing representation.'' By relating the present approach to the problem of existence of true …
We study the ultimate limits to the decoherence rate associated with dephasing processes. Fluctuating chaotic quantum systems are shown to exhibit extreme decoherence, with a rate that scales exponentially with the particle number, thus exceeding the polynomial dependence of systems with fluctuating $k$-body interactions. Our findings suggest the use of quantum chaotic systems as a natural test-bed for spontaneous wave function collapse models. We further discuss the implications on the decoherence of AdS/CFT black holes resulting from the unitarity loss associated with energy dephasing.
Driven chaotic systems are of interest in mesoscopic physics, as well as in nuclear, atomic and molecular physics. Such systems [coordinates $(Q,P)$]$ tend to absorb energy. This irreversible effect is known as dissipation. "Driving" means that a parameter $x$ is changed in time. More generally, $x$ may be a dynamical variable. In such case the interaction of $(x,p)$ with the environmental degrees of freedom $(Q,P)$ leads to dephasing as well as to dissipation. We introduce a general framework for the analysis of dissipation and dephasing, and we clarify the tight connection to recent studies …
We show that dephasing of individual atoms destroys the superradiance transition of the Dicke model, but that adding individual decay toward the spin down state can restore this transition. To demonstrate this, we present a method to give an exact solution for the $N$ atom problem with individual dephasing which scales polynomially with $N$. By comparing finite size scaling of our exact solution to a cumulant expansion, we confirm the destruction and restoration of the superradiance transition holds in the thermodynamic limit.
The work distribution is a fundamental quantity in nonequilibrium thermodynamics mainly due to its connection with fluctuations theorems. Here we develop a semiclassical approximation to the work distribution for a quench process in chaotic systems. The approach is based on the dephasing representation of the quantum Loschmidt echo and on the quantum ergodic conjecture, which states that the Wigner function of a typical eigenstate of a classically chaotic Hamiltonian is equidistributed on the energy shell. We show that our semiclassical approximation is accurate in describing the quantum distr…
The main idea of "Quantum Chaos" studies is that Quantum Mechanics introduces two energy scales into the study of chaotic systems: One is obviously the mean level spacing $Δ\propto\hbar^d$, where $d$ is the dimensionality; The other is $Δ_b\propto\hbar$, which is known as the non-universal energy scale, or as the bandwidth, or as the Thouless energy. Associated with these two energy scales are two special quantum-mechanical (QM) regimes in the theory of driven system. These are the QM adiabatic regime, and the QM non-perturbative regime respectively. Otherwise Fermi golden rule applies, and li…
The coupling between single-photon emitters and phonons opens many possibilities to store and transmit quantum properties. In this paper we apply the independent boson model to describe the coupling between an optically driven two-level system and a discrete phonon mode. Tailored optical driving allows not only to generate coherent phonon states, but also to generate coherent superpositions in the form of Schrödinger cat states in the phonon system. We analyze the influence of decay and dephasing of the two-level system on these phonon preparation protocols. We find that the decay transforms t…
We consider whether quantum coherence in the form of mutual entanglement between a pair of qubits is susceptible to decay that may be more rapid than the decay of the coherence of either qubit individually. An instance of potential importance for solid state quantum computing arises if embedded qubits (spins, quantum dots, Cooper pair boxes, etc.) are exposed to global and local noise at the same time. Here we allow separate phase-noisy channels to affect local and non-local measures of system coherence. We find that the time for decay of the qubit entanglement can be significantly shorter tha…
Two aspects of the classic two-level Landau--Zener (LZ) problem are considered. First, we address the LZ problem when one or both levels decay, i.e., $\veps_j(t) \to \veps_j(t)-i Γ_j/2$. We find that if the system evolves from an initial time $-T$ to a final time $+T$ such that $|\veps_1(\pm T)-\veps_2(\pm T)|$ is not too large, the LZ survival probability of a state $| j \ra$ can {\em increase} with increasing decay rate of the other state $|i \ne j \ra$. This surprising result occurs because the decay results in crossing of the two eigenvalues of the instantaneous non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. …
We study the error rate of CNOT operations in the Kane solid state quantum computer architecture. A spin Hamiltonian is used to describe the system. Dephasing is included as exponential decay of the off diagonal elements of the system's density matrix. Using available spin echo decay data, the CNOT error rate is estimated at approsimately 10^{-3}.
Randomized benchmarking has emerged as a popular and easy-to-implement experimental technique for gauging the quality of gate operations in quantum computing devices. A typical randomized benchmarking procedure identifies the exponential decay in the fidelity as the benchmarking sequence of gates increases in length, and the decay rate is used to estimate the fidelity of the gate. That the fidelity decays exponentially, however, relies on the assumption of time-independent or static noise in the gates, with no correlations or significant drift in the noise over the gate sequence, a well-satisf…
A hypothesis about the average phase-space distribution of resonance eigenfunctions in chaotic systems with escape through an opening is proposed. Eigenfunctions with decay rate $γ$ are described by a classical measure that $(i)$ is conditionally invariant with classical decay rate $γ$ and $(ii)$ is uniformly distributed on sets with the same temporal distance to the quantum resolved chaotic saddle. This explains the localization of fast-decaying resonance eigenfunctions classically. It is found to occur in the phase-space region having the largest distance to the chaotic saddle. We discuss th…
We show that the mechanism of quantum freeze of fidelity decay for perturbations with zero time-average, recently discovered for a specific case of integrable dynamics [New J. Phys. 5 (2003) 109], can be generalized to arbitrary quantum dynamics. We work out explicitly the case of chaotic classical counterpart, for which we find semi-classical expressions for the value and the range of the plateau of fidelity. After the plateau ends, we find explicit expressions for the asymptotic decay, which can be exponential or Gaussian depending on the ratio of the Heisenberg time to the decay time. Arbit…
We relate disentanglement and decoherence rates in a pair of three-level atoms subjected to multi-local and collective pure dephasing noise acting in a preferred basis. The bipartite entanglement decay rate, as bounded from above by the negativity, is found to be greater than or equal to the dephasing-decoherence rates characterized by the decay of off-diagonal elements in the corresponding full density matrix describing the system or the reduced density matrix describing either qutrit, extending previous results for qubit pairs subject to such noise.
We address frequency-dependent quantum transport through mesoscopic conductors in the semiclassical limit. By generalizing the trajectory-based semiclassical theory of dc quantum transport to the ac case, we derive the average screened conductance as well as ac weak-localization corrections for chaotic conductors. Thereby we confirm respective random matrix results and generalize them by accounting for Ehrenfest time effects. We consider the case of a cavity connected through many leads to a macroscopic circuit which contains ac-sources. In addition to the reservoir the cavity itself is capaci…
We have developed a full quantum microscopic theory to analyze the time evolution of transversal and longitudinal components of an exciton-single photon system coupled to bulk acoustic phonons. These components are subjected to two decay processes. One is radiative relaxation and the other is pure-dephasing due to exciton-phonon interaction. The former results in a decay with an exponent linear to time, while the latter causes a faster initial decay than the radiative decay. We analyzed the dependence of the components on the duration of the input one-photon pulse, temperature, and radiative r…
We perform echo spectroscopy on ultra cold atoms in atom optics billiards, to study their quantum dynamics. The detuning of the trapping laser is used to change the ``perturbation'', which causes a decay in the echo coherence. Two different regimes are observed: First, a perturbative regime in which the decay of echo coherence is non-monotonic and partial revivals of coherence are observed. These revivals are more pronounced in traps with mixed dynamics as compared to traps where the dynamics is fully chaotic. Next, for stronger perturbations, the decay becomes monotonic and independent of the…
Entanglement enhanced quantum metrology has been well investigated for beating the standard quantum limit (SQL). However, the metrological advantage of entangled states becomes much more elusive in the presence of noise. Under strictly Markovian dephasing noise, the uncorrelated and maximally entangled states achieve exactly the same measurement precision. However, it was predicted that in a non-Markovian dephasing channel, the entangled probes can recover their metrological advantage. Here, by using a highly controlled photonic system, we simulate a non-Markovian dephasing channel fulfill the…
We investigate decoherence in quantum systems coupled via dephasing-type interactions to an arbitrary environment with chaotic underlying classical dynamics. The coherences of the reduced state of the central system written in the preferential energy eigenbasis are quantum Loschmidt echoes, which in the strong coupling regime are characterized at long times scales by fluctuations around a constant mean value. We show that due to the chaotic dynamics of the environment, the mean value and the width of the Loschmidt echo fluctuations are inversely proportional to the quantity we define as the ef…
We study the quantum capacity of continuous variable dephasing channel, which is a notable example of non-Gaussian quantum channel. We prove that a single letter formula applies. We then consider input energy restriction and show that by increasing it, the capacity saturates to a finite value. The optimal input state is found to be diagonal in the Fock basis and with a distribution that is a discrete version of a Gaussian. Relations between its mean/variance and dephasing rate/input energy are put forward. We also show that quantum capacity decays exponentially for large values of dephasing ra…
We analyze a 1-d ring structure composed of many two-levels systems, in the limit where only one excitation is present. The two-levels systems are coupled to a common environment, where the excitation can be lost, which induces super and subradiant behavior. Moreover, each two-levels system is coupled to another independent environment, modeled by a classical white noise, simulating a dephasing bath and described by the Haken-Strobl master equation. Single exciton Superradiance, an example of cooperative quantum coherent effect, is destroyed at a critical dephasing strength proportional to the…
We study electron-phonon interaction induced decoherence between two-electron singlet and triplet states in a semiconductor double quantum dot using a spin-boson model. We investigate the onset and time evolution of this dephasing, and study its dependence on quantum dot parameters such as dot size and double dot separations, as well as the host materials (GaAs and Si). At the short time limit, electron-phonon interaction only causes an incomplete initial Gaussian decay of the off-diagonal density matrix element in the singlet-triplet Hilbert space. A complete long-time exponential decay due t…
We discuss the dephasing induced by the internal classical chaotic motion in the absence of any external environment. To this end a new extension of fidelity for mixed states is introduced, which we name {\it allegiance}. Such quantity directly accounts for quantum interference and is measurable in a Ramsey interferometry experiment. We show that in the semiclassical limit the decay of the allegiance is exactly expressed, due to the dephasing, in terms of an appropriate classical correlation function. Our results are derived analytically for the case of a nonlinear driven oscillator and then n…
The Heisenberg limit is the superior precision available by entanglement sensors. However, entanglementis fragile against dephasing, and there is no known quantum metrology protocol that can achieve Heisenberg limited sensitivity with the presence of independent dephasing. Here, we show that the Heisenberg limit is attainable under the effect of independent dephasing under conditions where the probe qubits decohere due to both target fields and local environments. To detect the target fields, we exploit the entanglement properties to decay much faster than the classical states due to collectiv…
We study the entanglement dynamics for a two-spin system coupled to a spin environment of different configurations by z-x type interaction. The models considered in this paper are solved both analytically and numerically giving rise to some concise analytical expressions when certain approximations are properly made. Our purpose is to find how the initial states of the environment with different numbers of spins affect the decay or revival of the entanglement between central qubits. In Particular, it is found that the block-entangled environment could speed up the decay and revival of the qubi…
Pair collisions in atomic gases lead to decoherence and decay. Assuming that all the atoms in the gas are equally likely to collide one is led to consider Lindbladian of mean field type where the evolution in the limit of many atoms reduces to a single qudit Lindbladian with quadratic non-linearity. We describe three smoking guns for non-linear evolutions: Power law decay and dephasing rates; Dephasing rates that take a continuous range of values depending on the initial data and finally, anomalous flow of the Bloch ball towards a hemisphere.
Quantum decay in an ac driven biased periodic potential modeling cold atoms in optical lattices is studied for a symmetry broken driving. For the case of fully chaotic classical dynamics the classical exponential decay is quantum mechanically suppressed for a driving frequency ωin resonance with the Bloch frequency ω_B, qω=rω_B with integers q and r. Asymptotically an algebraic decay ~t^{-γ} is observed. For r=1 the exponent γagrees with $q$ as predicted by non-Hermitian random matrix theory for q decay channels. The time dependence of the survival probability can be well described by random m…
Quantum Zeno and anti-Zeno effects on pure dephasing are studied using exactly solvable microscopic models. The crossover between these two opposite effects is investigated. The case of a single two-level system undergoing dephasing is already different from the previously studied population decay problem, even without taking into account any back action from the environment. For many two-level systems interacting with a common environment, multiple transitions between Zeno and anti-Zeno regimes are predicted. Finally, if the system-environment coupling strength is not weak, we show that the n…
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.
General semiclassical expression for quantum fidelity (Loschmidt echo) of arbitrary pure and mixed states is derived. It expresses fidelity as an interference sum of dephasing trajectories weighed by the Wigner function of the initial state, and does not require that the initial state be localized in position or momentum. This general dephasing representation is special in that, counterintuitively, all of fidelity decay is due to dephasing and none due to the decay of classical overlaps. Surprising accuracy of the approximation is justified by invoking the shadowing theorem: twice--both for ph…
We study a dephasing channel with memory, described by a Hamiltonian model in which the system-environment interaction is described by a stochastic process. We propose a useful way to describe the channel uses correlations. Moreover, we give a general expression for the coherences decay factors as a function of the number of channel uses and of the stochastic process power spectrum. We also study the impact of memory on the three qubit code, showing that correlations among channel uses affect very little the code performance.
We investigate the time evolution of negativity and quantum discord for a pair of non-interacting qubits with one being weakly coupled to a decohering Davies--type Markovian environment. At initial time of preparation, the qubits are prepared in one of the maximally entangled pure Bell states. In the limiting case of pure decoherence (i.e. pure dephasing), both, the quantum discord and negativity decay to zero in the long time limit. In presence of a manifest dissipative dynamics, the entanglement negativity undergoes a sudden death at finite time while the quantum discord relaxes continuously…
We discuss a simple, experimentally feasible scheme, which elucidates the principles of controlling ("engineering") the reservoir spectrum and the spectral broadening incurred by repeated measurements. This control can yield either the inhibition (Zeno effect) or the acceleration (anti-Zeno effect) of the quasi-exponential decay of the observed state by means of frequent measurements. In the discussed scheme, a photon is bouncing back and forth between two perfect mirrors, each time passing a polarization rotator. The horizontal and vertical polarizations can be viewed as analogs of an excited…
We study transport properties of anisotropic Heisenberg model in a disordered magnetic field experiencing dephasing due to external degrees of freedom. In the absence of dephasing the model can display, depending on parameter values, the whole range of possible transport regimes: ideal ballistic conduction, diffusive, or ideal insulating behavior. We show that the presence of dephasing induces normal diffusive transport in a wide range of parameters. We also analyze the dependence of spin conductivity on the dephasing strength. In addition, by analyzing the decay of spin-spin correlation funct…
We investigate the measurement-induced dephasing of a qubit coupled with a single-mode cavity in the vacuum limit. Dephasing of the qubit state takes place through the ntanglement of the qubit and the single probe photon sent to the cavity, while the cavity mode never occupies a photon. We find that the qubit state is dephased even if the cavity is always in the vacuum state. This dephasing is caused purely by the interaction between the qubit and the vacuum field. We also show that this vacuum-fluctuation-induced dephasing takes place much faster than the spontaneous decay of the qubit excite…
We investigate the nonclassicality of several kinds of nonclassical optical fields such as the pure or mixed single photon-added coherent states and the cat states in the photon-loss or the dephasing channels by exploring the entanglement potential as the measure. It is shown that the long-time decay of entanglement potentials of these states in photon loss channel is dependent of their initial quadrature squeezing properties. In the case of photon-loss, transition of long-time decay rate emerges at the boundary between the squeezing and non-squeezing initial non-gaussian states if log-negativ…
We study the robustness and fragility of entanglement of open quantum systems in some exactly solvable models in which the decoherence is caused by a pure dephasing process. In particular, for the toy models presented in this paper, we identify two different time scales, one is responsible for local dephasing, while the other is for entanglement decay. For a class of fragile entangled states defined in this paper, we find that the entanglement of two qubits, as measured by concurrence, decays faster asymptotically than the quantum dephasing of an individual qubit.
We recently showed that the Dephasing Representation (DR) provides an efficient tool for computing ultrafast electronic spectra and that further acceleration is possible with cellularization [M. Šulc and J. Vaníček, Mol. Phys. 110, 945 (2012)]. Here we focus on increasing the accuracy of this approximation by first implementing an exact Gaussian basis method, which benefits from the accuracy of quantum dynamics and efficiency of classical dynamics. Starting from this exact method, the DR is derived together with ten other methods for computing time-resolved spectra with intermediate accuracy a…
The longitudinal coupling of a system to the bath usually induces the pure dephasing of the system. In this paper, we study the collective dephasing induced dissipation and decoherence in a coupled-qubit system with a common bath. It is shown that, compared with the case of the same system with independent baths, the interference between the dephasing processes of different qubits induced by the common bath significantly changes the dissipation of the system. For the system of two coupled qubits, the interference leads to a faster decoherence in the non-single-excitation subspaces and a slower…
The study and control of coherence in quantum systems is one of the most exciting recent developments in physics. Quantum coherence plays a crucial role in emerging quantum technologies as well as fundamental experiments. A major obstacle to the utilization of quantum effects is decoherence, primarily in the form of dephasing that destroys quantum coherence, and leads to effective classical behaviour. We show that there are universal relationships governing dephasing, which constrain the relative rates at which quantum correlations can disappear. These effectively lead to speed limits which be…
The analysis of diffusive energy spreading in quantized chaotic driven systems, leads to a universal paradigm for the emergence of a quantum anomaly. In the classical approximation a driven chaotic system exhibits stochastic-like diffusion in energy space with a coefficient $D$ that is proportional to the intensity $ε^2$ of the driving. In the corresponding quantized problem the coherent transitions are characterized by a generalized Wigner time $t_ε$, and a self-generated (intrinsic) dephasing process leads to non-linear dependence of $D$ on $ε^2$.
The population decay due to a small opening in an otherwise closed cavity supporting chaotic classical dynamics displays a quantum correction on top of the classical exponential form, a pure manifestation of quantum coherence that acquires a universal form and can be explained by path interference. Being coherent, such enhancement is prone to decoherence effects due to the coupling of the system to an external environment. We study this interplay between incoherent and coherent quantum corrections to decay by evaluating, within a Caldeira-Legget scenario, off-diagonal contributions to the deco…
A theory of Rydberg atom interactions is used to derive analytical forms for the spin wave pair correlation function in laser-excited cold-atom vapors. This function controls the quantum statistics of light emission from dense, inhomogeneous clouds of cold atoms of various spatial dimensionalities. The results yield distinctive scaling behaviors on the microsecond timescale, including generalized exponential decay. A detailed comparison is presented with a recent experiment on a cigar-shaped atomic ensemble [Y. Dudin and A. Kuzmich, Science 336, 887 (2012)], in which Rb atoms are excited to a …
In Heisenberg models with exchange anisotropy, transverse spin components are not conserved and can decay not only by transport, but also by dephasing. Here we utilize ultracold atoms to simulate the dynamics of 1D Heisenberg spin chains, and observe fast, local spin decay controlled by the anisotropy. Additionally, we directly observe an effective magnetic field created by superexchange which causes an inhomogeneous decay mechanism due to variations of lattice depth between chains, as well as dephasing within each chain due to the twofold reduction of the effective magnetic field at the edges…
We study a two-level impurity coupled locally to a quantum gas on an optical lattice. For state-dependent interactions between the impurity and the gas, we show that its evolution encodes information on the local excitation spectrum of gas at the coupling site. Based on this, we design a nondestructive method to probe the system's excitations in a broad range of energies by measuring the state of the probe using standard atom optics methods. We illustrate our findings with numerical simulations for quantum lattice systems, including realistic dephasing noise on the quantum probe, and discuss p…
We study dynamics of the measurement process in quantum dot systems, where a particular state out of coherent superposition is observed. The ballistic point-contact placed near one of the dots is taken as a noninvasive detector. We demonstrate that the measurement process is fully described by the Bloch-type equations applied to the whole system. These equations clearly reproduce the collapse of the density-matrix into the statistical mixture in the course of the measurement process. The corresponding dephasing width is uniquely defined. We show that the continuous observation of one of the st…
