Decoherence, tunneling and noise-activation in a double-potential well at high and zero temperature
Nuno D. Antunes, Fernando C. Lombardo, Diana Monteoliva, Paula I. Villar
备注：
Version to appear in Phys. Rev. E. 15 pages, 12 figures (low quality due to upload size limitations). Good quality figures in a pdf file can be downloaded from http://www.df.uba.ar/users/lombardo/tunnel
We study the effects of the environment on tunneling in an open system described by a static double-well potential. We describe the evolution of a quantum state localized in one of the minima of the potential at $t=0$, both in the limits of high and zero environment temperature. We show that the evolution of the system can be summarized in terms of three main physical phenomena, namely decoherence, quantum tunneling and noise-induced activation, and we obtain analytical estimates for the corresponding time-scales. These analytical predictions are confirmed by large-scale numerical simulations, providing a detailed picture of the main stages of the evolution and of the relevant dynamical processes.
We study the effects of the environment at zero temperature on tunneling in an open system described by a static double-well potential. We show that the evolution of the system in an initial Schrodinger cat state, can be summarized in terms of three main physical phenomena, namely decoherence, quantum tunneling and noise-induced activation. Using large-scale numerical simulations, we obtain a detailed picture of the main stages of the evolution and of the relevant dynamical processes
We investigate numerically the tunneling effect under influence of another particle in a double well system. Such influence from only one degree of freedom makes decoherence and quantum-classical transition, i.e., suppression of the tunneling effect. The decoherence happens even for cases that the influence is from a particle of very small mass, and it has virtually no effect in the corresponding classical dynamics. There are cases similar to dynamical localization that the suppressed tunneling rate is several times smaller than the classical counterpart. This result is relevant for understand…
Decoherence effects associated to the damping of a tunneling two-level system are shown to dominate the tunneling probability at short times in strong coupling regimes in the context of a soluble model. A general decomposition of tunneling rates in dissipative and unitary parts is implemented. Master equation treatments fail to describe the model system correctly when more than a single relaxation time is involved.
We analyze the effects of the environment on the spin tunneling process of paramagnetic and superparamagnetic particles and conclude that the non assisted macroscopic tunneling rate is hardly affected in such case, but other more effective (phonon mediated) processes change the magnetization state of the particle. We conclude that for both, paramagnetic and superparamagnetic particles, the decoherence time scale is extremely short (~ 10^(-8..-16)seg), indicating thar coherent tunneling should be strongly suppressed in favor of incoherent tunneling, i.e., the population of higher levels with su…
Decay parameter of coherence and population inversion are calculated from the master equation of a two level atom tunneling through a squeezed vacuum. Using those parameters, the timescales for decoherence and zeno effect are calculated in the weak measurement scheme. By comparing those timescales, a certain condition has been found for sustainable coherent dynamics.
The tunneling probability for a system modelling macroscopic quantum tunneling is computed. We consider an open quantum system with one degree of freedom consisting of a particle trapped in a cubic potential interacting with an environment characterized by a dissipative and a diffusion parameter. A representation based on the energy eigenfunctions of the isolated system, i. e. the system uncoupled to the environment, is used to write the dynamical master equation for the reduced Wigner function of the open quantum system. This equation becomes very simple in that representation. The use of the…
Macroscopic quantum tunneling is described using the master equation for the reduced Wigner function of an open quantum system at zero temperature. Our model consists of a particle trapped in a cubic potential interacting with an environment characterized by dissipative and normal and anomalous diffusion coefficients. A representation based on the energy eigenfunctions of the isolated system, i.e. the system uncoupled to the environment, is used to write the reduced Wigner function, and the master equation becomes simpler in that representation. The energy eigenfunctions computed in a WKB appr…
Cosmic Lockdown: When Decoherence Saves the Universe from Tunneling
University of Portsmouth（朴茨茅斯大学）；Syracuse University（雪城大学）；ENS, CNRS, Université PSL, Sorbonne Université, Université Paris Cité（法兰西高等师范学院，法国国家科学研究中心，巴黎文理研究大学，索邦大学，巴黎西岱大学）
In this article we investigate the effects of shifting position decoherence, arisen from the tunneling effect in the experimental realization of the quantum walk, on the one-dimensional discreet time quantum walk. We show that in the regime of this type of noise the quantum behavior of the walker does not fade, in contrary to the coin decoherence for which the walker undergos the quantum-to-classical transition even for weak noise. Particularly, we show that the quadratic dependency of the variance on the time and also the coin-position entanglement, i.e. two important quantum aspects of the c…
The decoherence of a two-state tunneling molecule, such as a chiral molecule or ammonia, due to collisions with a buffer gas is analyzed in terms of a succession of quantum states of the molecule satisfying the conditions for a consistent family of histories. With $\hbar ω$ the separation in energy of the levels in the isolated molecule and $γ$ a decoherence rate proportional to the rate of collisions, we find for $γ\gg ω$ (strong decoherence) a consistent family in which the molecule flips randomly back and forth between the left- and right-handed chiral states in a stationary Markov process.…
We analyze decoherence of an electron in a double-dot due to the interaction with acoustic phonons. For large tunneling rates between the quantum dots, the main contribution to decoherence comes from the phonon emission relaxation processes, while for small tunneling rates, the virtual-phonon, dephasing processes dominate. Our results show that in common semiconductors, such as Si and GaAs, the latter mechanism determines the upper limit for the double-dot charge qubit performance measure.
Quasiparticle excitations adversely affect the performance of superconducting devices in a wide range of applications. They limit the sensitivity of photon detectors in astronomy, the accuracy of current sources in metrology, the cooling power of micro-refrigerators, and could break the topological protection of Majorana qubits. In superconducting circuits for quantum information processing, tunneling of quasiparticles across Josephson junctions constitutes a decoherence mechanism. As relaxation and pure dephasing times of transmon-type charge qubits now reach 100 microseconds, understanding w…
We study the effects of gravitationally-driven decoherence on tunneling processes associated with false vacuum decays, such as the Coleman--De~Luccia instanton. We compute the thermal graviton-induced decoherence rate for a wave function describing a perfect fluid of nonzero energy density in a finite region. When the effective cosmological constant is positive, the thermal graviton background sourced by a de Sitter horizon provides an unavoidable decoherence effect, which may have important consequences for tunneling processes in cosmological history. We discuss generalizations and consequenc…
An innovative microscopic model with a minimal number of parameters: tunneling splitting gap, external field sweeping velocity, and decoherence rate is used to describe dynamics of the dissipative Landau-Zener transition in the presence of the decoherence. In limiting cases, the derived equation of motion gives rise to the well-known Landau-Zener and Kayanuma formula. In a general case, the description demonstrates a non-monotonic flipping probability with respect to the sweeping velocity, which is also found in some other models. This non-monotony can be explained by considering the competiti…
In superconducting qubits, the interaction of the qubit degree of freedom with quasiparticles defines a fundamental limitation for the qubit coherence. We develop a theory of the pure dephasing rate Γ_ϕ caused by quasiparticles tunneling through a Josephson junction and of the inhomogeneous broadening due to changes in the occupations of Andreev states in the junction. To estimate Γ_ϕ, we derive a master equation for the qubit dynamics. The tunneling rate of free quasiparticles is enhanced by their large density of states at energies close to the superconducting gap. Nevertheless, we find that…
The tunneling through an opaque barrier with a strong oscillating component is investigated. It is shown, that in the strong perturbations regime (in contrast to the weak one), higher perturbations rate does not necessarily improve the activation. In fact, in this regime two rival factors play a role, and as a consequence, this tunneling system behaves like a sensitive frequency-shifter device: for most incident particles' energies activation occurs and the particles are energetically elevated, while for specific energies activation is depressed and the transmission is very low. This effect is…
Mechanical Activation of Terahertz Tunneling in Metallic Nanogaps
Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST)（蔚山科学技术院）；Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter（马普物质结构与动力学研究所）；Incheon National University（仁川国立大学）；Mohammed VI Polytechnic University（穆罕默德六世理工学院）
We show the equivalence of the functions $G_{\rm p}(t)$ and $|Ψ(d,t)|^2$ for the ``passage time'' in tunneling. The former, obtained within the framework of the real time Feynman histories approach to the tunneling time problem, using the Gell-Mann and Hartle's decoherence functional, and the latter involving an exact analytical solution to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for cutoff initial waves.
We examine the possibility that a metastable quantum state could experiment a phenomenon similar to thermal activation but at zero temperature. In order to do that we study the real-time dynamics of the reduced Wigner function in a simple open quantum system: an anharmonic oscillator with a cubic potential linearly interacting with an environment of harmonic oscillators. Our results suggest that this activation-like phenomenon exists indeed as a consequence of the fluctuations induced by the environment and that its associated decay rate is comparable to the tunneling rate as computed by the i…
We study the dynamics of a Bose-Einstein condensate in a double-well potential in the mean-field approximation. Decoherence effects are considered by analyzing the couplings of the condensate to environments. Two kinds of coupling are taken into account. With the first kind of coupling dominated, the decoherence can enhance the self-trapping by increasing the damping of the oscillations in the dynamics, while the decoherence from the second kind of condensate-environment coupling leads to spoiling of the quantum tunneling and self-trapping.
We study dissipative tunneling in a double well potential that is driven close to a resonance between the lowest tunnel doublet and a singlet. While the coherent dynamics can be described well within a three-level approximation, dissipative transitions to levels outside the singlet and the doublet may play a crucial role. Moreover, such transitions can enhance the entropy production significantly.
We consider a quantum model of a nanomechanical flexing beam resonator interacting with a bath comprising a few damped tunneling two level systems (TLS's). In contrast with a resonator interacting bilinearly with an ohmic free oscillator bath (modeling clamping loss, for example), the mechanical resonator damping is amplitude dependent, while the decoherence of quantum superpositions of mechanical position states depends only weakly on their spatial separation.
We discuss how to make use of high-Tc d-wave Josephson junctions in the construction of a phase qubit. We especially focus on the effect of the quasiparticle dissipation and the zero energy bound state on the macroscopic quantum tunneling which corresponds to the final measurement process of the d-wave phase qubit.
We consider a macroscopic quantum system in a tilted double-well potential. By solving Hamiltonian equation, we obtain tunneling probabilities which contain oscillation effects. To show how one can decide between quantum mechanics and the implications of macrorealism assumption, a given form of Leggett-Garg inequality is used. The violation of this inequality occurs for a broader range of decoherence effects, compared to previous results obtained for two-level systems.
In this Thesis we study the quantum to classical transition process in the context of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. We shall analyze the effects that general environments, namely ohmic and non-ohmic, at zero and high temperature induce over a quantum Brownian particle. We state that the evolution of the system can be summarized in terms of two main environmental induced physical phenomena: decoherence and energy activation. In this Thesis, we shall show that the latter is a post-decoherence phenomenon. As the energy is an observable, the excitation process can be consider a direc…
The evolution of the quantum wave packet describing an atom trapped in the surface-tip junction of the scanning tunneling microscope is investigated by using the time-dependent Schroedinger equation, and by a quasi-classical Hamiltonian approach. The estimates concern a Xe atom in a biased double-well junction potential. The exact treatment shows that quantum coherence oscillations of the metastable ground state may occur at particular resonant values of the bias voltage. The effect of decoherence by partial localization is studied within the quasi-classical frame.
G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute a large family of receptor proteins that sense molecular signals on the exterior of a cell and activate signal transduction pathways within the cell. Modeling how an agonist activates such a receptor is fundamental for an understanding of a wide variety of physiological processes and it is of tremendous value for pharmacology and drug design. Inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) has been proposed as a model for the mechanism by which olfactory GPCRs are activated by a bound agonist. We apply this hypothesis to GPCRs within the mammalia…
We analyze the effects that general environments, namely ohmic and non-ohmic, at zero and high temperature induce over a quantum Brownian particle. We state that the evolution of the system can be summarized in terms of two main environmental induced physical phenomena: decoherence and energy activation. In this article we show that the latter is a post-decoherence phenomenon. As the energy is an observable, the excitation process is a direct indication of the system-environment entanglement particularly useful at zero temperature.
The position-momentum uncertainty relations containing the dependence of their quantum bounds on state purity parameter $μ$ are discussed in context of possibilities to influence on the potential barrier transparency by means of decoherence processes. The behavior of barrier transparency $D$ is shown to satisfy the condition $μ^{-1}\ln D=const$. The particular case of thermal state with temperature $T$ where the purity parameter is a function of temperature is considered. For large temperature the condition for the barrier transparency is shown to be $T\ln D=const$.
We study the decoherence process for an open quantum system which is classically chaotic (a quartic double well with harmonic driving coupled to a sea of harmonic oscillators). We analyze the time dependence of the rate of entropy production showing that it has two relevant regimes: For short times it is proportional to the diffusion coefficient (fixed by the system--environment coupling strength). For longer times (but before equilibration) it is fixed by dynamical properties of the system (and is related to the Lyapunov exponent). The nature of the transition time between both regimes is inv…
The transmon superconducting qubit is being intensely investigated as a promising approach for the physical implementation of quantum information processing, and high quality factors of order $10^6$ have been achieved both in two- and three-dimensional architectures. These high quality factors enable detailed investigations of decoherence mechanisms. An intrinsic decoherence process originates from the coupling between the qubit degree of freedom and the quasiparticles that tunnel across Josephson junctions. In a transmon, tunneling of a single quasiparticle is associated with a change in pari…
We introduce an extended Dicke model with controllable long-range atom-atom interaction to simulate topologically ordered states and achieve decoherence-protected qubits. We illustrate our idea in an experimentally feasible circuit quantum electrodynamics scenario. Due to the intrinsic competition with the atom-field coupling strength, we first demonstrate that this atom-atom interaction can exhibit a novel topological quantum interference effect arising from the instanton and anti-instanton tunneling paths. As a consequence, this proposed model only with a few odd-number of atoms has a two-fo…
We consider the effect of electron-electron interactions on a voltage biased quantum point contact in the tunneling regime used as a detector of a nearby qubit. We model the leads of the quantum point contact as Luttinger liquids, incorporate the effects of finite temperature and analyze the detection-induced decoherence rate and the detector efficiency, $Q$. We find that interactions generically reduce the induced decoherence along with the detector's efficiency, and strongly affect the relative strength of the decoherence induced by tunneling and that induced by interactions with the local d…
I investigate the tunneling decay rate of a polaritonic system formed by a strong coupling between a vacuum cavity mode and $N$ metastable systems. Using a simple model potential, I find the instanton solutions controlling the low-temperature tunneling rate. The resulting rate modification due to the cavity is proportional to the mean of the second power of the light-matter coupling. No collective effect that would enhance the rates by a factor of $\sqrt{N}$ is present, which is in line with the results in the thermal activation regime.
We study the measurement process by treating classical detectors entirely quantum mechanically. As a generic model we use a point-contact detector coupled to an electron in a quantum dot and tunneling into the continuum. Transition to the classical description and the mechanism of decoherence are investigated. We concentrate on the influence of the measurement on the electron decay rate to the continuum. We demonstrate that the Zeno (or the anti-Zeno) effect requires a nonuniform density of states in the continuum. In this case we show that the anti-Zeno effect relates only to the average deca…
A general coherent control scenario to suppress, or accelerate, tunneling of quantum states decaying into a continuum, is investigated. The method is based on deterministic, or stochastic, sequences of unitary pulses that affect the underlying interference phenomena responsible for quantum dynamics, without inducing decoherence, or collapsing the coherent evolution of the system. The influence of control sequences on the ensuing quantum dynamics is analyzed by using perturbation theory to first order in the control pulse fields and compared to dynamical decoupling (DD) protocols and sequences …
Quantum computation in solid state quantum dots faces two significant challenges: Decoherence from interactions with the environment and the difficulty of generating local magnetic fields for the single qubit rotations. This paper presents a design of composite qubits to overcome both challenges. Each qubit is encoded in the degenerate ground-state of four (or six) electrons in a system of five quantum dots arranged in a two-dimensional pattern. This decoherence-free subspace is immune to both collective and local decoherence, and resists other forms of decoherence, which must raise the energy…
We briefly review the oscillator and spin bath models of quantum environments, which can be used to describe the low-energy dynamics of open quantum systems. We then use them to discuss both the mechanisms causing decoherence at low $T$, and the dynamics of this decoherence. This is done first for a central 2-level system coupled to these environments- the results can be applied to the dynamics of quantum nanomagnets and superconducting SQUIDs, where large-scale tunneling of magnetisation and flux take place. Decoherence in these systems is caused principally by coupling to electrons and nucle…
The time evolution of a qubit, consisting of two single-level quantum dots, is studied in the presence of telegraph noise. The dots are connected by two tunneling paths, with an Aharonov-Bohm flux enclosed between them. Under special symmetry conditions, which can be achieved by tuning gate voltages, there develops partial decoherence: at long times, the off-diagonal element of the reduced density matrix (in the basis of the two dot states) approaches a non-zero value, generating a circulating current around the loop. The flux dependence of this current contains full information on the initial…
The effects of a voltage pulse on the localization probability for a Xe atom prepared in a pure state localized on the STM surface at 0 temperature is investigated by numerically integrating the time-dependent Schroedinger equation. In these calculations the environmental interactions are neglected, and voltage pulses of 20 and 7 ns with symmetric triangular and trapezoidal shapes are considered. The atom dynamics at an environmental temperature of 4 K is studied in the frame of a stochastic, non-linear Liouville equation for the density operator. It is shown that the irreversible transfer fro…
We study the entanglement dynamics and relaxation properties of a system of two interacting qubits in the two cases (I) two independent bosonic baths and (II) one common bath, at temperature T. The entanglement dynamics is studied in terms of the concurrence C (t) between the two spins and of the von Neumann entropy S(t) with respect to the bath, as a function of time. We prove that the system does thermalize. In the case (II) of a single bath, the existence of a decoherence-free (DFS) subspace makes entanglement dynamics very rich. We show that when the system is initially in a state with a c…
We show that nonlinear response of a quantum oscillator displays antiresonant dips and resonant peaks with varying frequency of the driving field. The effect is a consequence of special symmetry and is related to resonant multiphoton mixing of several pairs of oscillator states at a time. We also discuss escape from a metastable state of forced vibrations. Two important examples show that the probability of escape via diffusion over quasienergy is larger than via dynamical tunneling provided the relaxation rate exceeds both of them. Diffusion dominates even for zero temperature, so that escape…
Asymmetry Control in a Parametric Oscillator for the Quantum Simulation of Chemical Activation
Yale University（耶鲁大学）；University College London（伦敦大学学院）；Google Quantum AI（Google量子AI）；University of California, Santa Barbara（加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校）；Nord Quantique；University of Michigan（密歇根大学）
We study dynamics of two interacting ultra cold Bose atoms in a harmonic oscillator potential in one spatial dimension. Making use of the exact solution of the eigenvalue problem of a particle in the delta-like potential we study time evolution of initially separable state of two particles. The corresponding time dependent single particle density matrix is obtained and diagonalized and single particle orbitals are found. This allows to study decoherence as well as creation of entanglement during the dynamics. The evolution of the orbital corresponding to the largest eigenvalue is then compared…
We present a quantum algorithm which allows to simulate chaos-assisted tunneling in deep semiclassical regime on existing quantum computers. This opens new possibilities for investigation of macroscopic quantum tunneling and realization of semiclassical Schrödinger cat oscillations. Our numerical studies determine the decoherence rate induced by noisy gates for these oscillations and propose a suitable parameter regime for their experimental implementation.
Constructing Large and Structured Decoherence-Free Subspaces in Hybrid Quantum Systems
Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems（马克斯·普朗克复杂系统物理研究所）；Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Centrale Med, Institut de Physique de Nice（蔚蓝海岸大学、法国国家科学研究中心、中央理工-梅兹学院、尼斯物理研究所）
The anomalous low-temperature properties of glasses arise from intrinsic excitable entities, so-called tunneling Two-Level-Systems (TLS), whose microscopic nature has been baffling solid-state physicists for decades. TLS have become particularly important for micro-fabricated quantum devices such as superconducting qubits, where they are a major source of decoherence. Here, we present a method to characterize individual TLS in virtually arbitrary materials deposited as thin-films. The material is used as the dielectric in a capacitor that shunts the Josephson junction of a superconducting qubi…
We investigate classical thermal activation (TA) and macroscopic quantum tunneling (MQT) for a Josephson junction coupled with an LC circuit theoretically. The TA and MQT escape rate are calculated analytically by taking into account the two-dimensional nature of the classical and quantum phase dynamics. We find that the MQT escape rate is largely suppressed by the coupling to the LC circuit. On the other hand, this coupling gives rise to slight reduction of the TA escape rate. These results are relevant for the interpretation of a recent experiment on the MQT and TA phenomena in grain boundar…
We study switching between period-two states of an underdamped quantum oscillator modulated at nearly twice its natural frequency. For all temperatures and parameter values switching occurs via quantum activation: it is determined by diffusion over oscillator quasienergy, provided the relaxation rate exceeds the rate of interstate tunneling. The diffusion has quantum origin and accompanies relaxation to the stable state. We find the semiclassical distribution over quasienergy. For T=0, where the system has detailed balance, this distribution differs from the distribution for $T\to 0$; the T=0 …
Dissipative quantum tunnelling through an inverted parabolic barrier is considered in the presence of an electric field. A Schrödinger-Langevin or Kostin quantum classical transition wave equation is used and applied resulting in a scaled differential equation of motion. A Gaussian wave packet solution to the resulting scaled Kostin nonlinear equation is assumed and compared to the same solution for the scaled linear Caldirola-Kanai equation. The resulting scaled trajectories are obtained at different dynamical regimes and friction cases, showing the gradual decoherence process in this open dy…
